Question No life on power button...

[vaderag]

I have a pretty old machine which all of a sudden does nothing when the power button is pressed
I noticed that one of the pins had somehow broken off inside the case for the HDD LED, so I've removed everything from the panel connectors but the power button, but still no life

It's not the PSU (or at least not obviously) because the light on the motherboard comes on, so some power is getting through, but other than that nothing when i press the power button

Any ideas on how to diagnose?

 

[rgd1101]

It's not the PSU (or at least not obviously) because the light on the motherboard comes on,

doesn't take much to power some light

full system spec? include brand and model of the psu

 

[Lutfij]

As my colleague above has stated, you don't need much power to have it in standby mode. LED's are extremely efficient, they don't need much to power up either. Make and model of your "old" motherboard? There should be a pinout diagram located next to your motherboard's frontpanel connector/pins, to identify the power +ve and -ve terminals.

 

[vaderag]

Is an ASUS P5K-E (Wifi-AP)
I have the power connected in the right place, confident the pinouts are correct

PSU is a Nexus NX-3500

 

[rickypicky5]

How old is your PSU? Google says it came out in 2003.

 

[vaderag]

How old is your PSU? Google says it came out in 2003.

Not that old, but not new. No idea tbh.

But before everyone gets all ageist, lets assume it's NOT the PSU... (I absolutely appreciate it might be, but I'm not buying a new PSU for this machine, would sooner replace the whole thing... but would like to understand what other diagnostic steps I can take other than replacing the PSU?

For example - removing the CMOS battery for 5mins and re-inserting gave me a sign of life, fans started for a brief moment, but it still didn't boot

 

[Bob.B]

Not that old, but not new. No idea tbh.

But before everyone gets all ageist, lets assume it's NOT the PSU... (I absolutely appreciate it might be, but I'm not buying a new PSU for this machine, would sooner replace the whole thing... but would like to understand what other diagnostic steps I can take other than replacing the PSU?

For example - removing the CMOS battery for 5mins and re-inserting gave me a sign of life, fans started for a brief moment, but it still didn't boot

Psu+mobo+one stick of ram+cpu/hsf.

Nothing else connected......test.

 

[geofelt]

Is the psu switched on??? duh! I have missed this before.

Take a screwdriver and momentarily short the two pwr pins.
A momentary touch is all that is needed to start the motherboard.

If this works, your case power button or the leads may be defective.
Customer service may be able to replace them for you.

If this does not work, you have a motherboard or psu defect.

 

[Darkbreeze]

There being a light on, on the motherboard, literally means nothing whatsoever so for this case and for future reference you want to get that right out of your head. It literally takes almost zero power to light a tiny LED bulb, besides which there are twenty or more different ways in which a PSU can fail and there can be failures on the 3v, 5v or 12v rails, or on one 12v rail and not another one if it is a multi-rail platform, without there being anything substantiall wrong with the other rails in the unit, and still fail to operate properly.

That unit, when new, would be considered "somewhat ok" by todays standards, but was a pretty decent little unit back in 2003 when it was released. But that was almost twenty years ago. There is no way that unit should still have been in use in any system once it was more than five years old.

Nexus NX3500 120mm PSU

Dec 17, 2003 by Mike Chin Product Nexus NX3500 “Real Silent PSU” Special Edition Manufacturer Nexustek Sample Supplier EndPCNoise Market Price US$80 Since their entry into the marketplace at the beginning of this year, 120mm fan PSUs have proliferated. They’re still not as common as the standard...

silentpcreview.com

If you want to get this system going again, in light of having to return the system in the other thread we were working on, this is where I'd start. However, given the age of the PSU, if the rest of the hardware is similarly ancient then the best thing if we are being honest would be to simply throw it away and replace it with something MUCH newer, and preferably not used and ten years old already. I understand that you want to keep your investment on this to a minimum but if it's important enough for you to go through all of this for then it's important enough to at least invest a minimal amount of money on with some new low end parts that likely give you far more than you'll get from anything as old as what you've been looking at. In fact, the 6th Gen i5 system from Ebay I recommended in the other thread would be the absolute minimum I'd recommend. Hardware just isn't designed to reliably last beyond five years because by then it is generally not capable enough to perform the tasks most people will require of it anymore. Usually anyhow.

What exactly are the full hardware specifications for this system, just to have a better understanding, and what exactly, is it that you are using it for? Is this going inside an actual arcade machine or what exactly?


You could also do something like this, or at the very least consider the recommended PSU model for attempting to bring the current system back to life:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Celeron G6900 3.4 GHz Dual-Core Processor (£49.31 @ Box Limited)
Motherboard: ASRock H610M-HVS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£82.22 @ More Computers)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£31.03 @ Box Limited)
Power Supply: Corsair CX450M (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£46.30 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £208.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-10-10 18:53 BST+0100

 

[vaderag]

There being a light on, on the motherboard, literally means nothing whatsoever so for this case and for future reference you want to get that right out of your head. It literally takes almost zero power to light a tiny LED bulb, besides which there are twenty or more different ways in which a PSU can fail and there can be failures on the 3v, 5v or 12v rails, or on one 12v rail and not another one if it is a multi-rail platform, without there being anything substantiall wrong with the other rails in the unit, and still fail to operate properly.

That unit, when new, would be considered "somewhat ok" by todays standards, but was a pretty decent little unit back in 2003 when it was released. But that was almost twenty years ago. There is no way that unit should still have been in use in any system once it was more than five years old.

Nexus NX3500 120mm PSU

Dec 17, 2003 by Mike Chin Product Nexus NX3500 “Real Silent PSU” Special Edition Manufacturer Nexustek Sample Supplier EndPCNoise Market Price US$80 Since their entry into the marketplace at the beginning of this year, 120mm fan PSUs have proliferated. They’re still not as common as the standard...

silentpcreview.com

If you want to get this system going again, in light of having to return the system in the other thread we were working on, this is where I'd start. However, given the age of the PSU, if the rest of the hardware is similarly ancient then the best thing if we are being honest would be to simply throw it away and replace it with something MUCH newer, and preferably not used and ten years old already. I understand that you want to keep your investment on this to a minimum but if it's important enough for you to go through all of this for then it's important enough to at least invest a minimal amount of money on with some new low end parts that likely give you far more than you'll get from anything as old as what you've been looking at. In fact, the 6th Gen i5 system from Ebay I recommended in the other thread would be the absolute minimum I'd recommend. Hardware just isn't designed to reliably last beyond five years because by then it is generally not capable enough to perform the tasks most people will require of it anymore. Usually anyhow.

What exactly are the full hardware specifications for this system, just to have a better understanding, and what exactly, is it that you are using it for? Is this going inside an actual arcade machine or what exactly?


You could also do something like this, or at the very least consider the recommended PSU model for attempting to bring the current system back to life:


PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Celeron G6900 3.4 GHz Dual-Core Processor (£49.31 @ Box Limited)
Motherboard: ASRock H610M-HVS Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard (£82.22 @ More Computers)
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£31.03 @ Box Limited)
Power Supply: Corsair CX450M (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£46.30 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £208.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-10-10 18:53 BST+0100

Thanks for the details.
The machine will be going inside a custom built arcade cabinet that I built myself
(

https://imgur.com/a/dGBvvs5

View: https://imgur.com/a/dGBvvs5
)

It doesn't need much to run it (hence repurposing the old machine a few years back)

Current specs are:
Asus P5K-E
Intel Q6600
MSI N740
Some Samsung RAM
and the aforementioned PSU
Oh and obviously an SSD and some other drives

I suspect it's the PSU after running some tests and minimising what's connected. After saying I wouldn't there is an evga psu on offer on Amazon today which I'm going to give a try... failing that I might look at building something better

As you say - i'm trying to minimise costs / reuse what I have where I can because it's not a primary runner

 

[vaderag]

It was the PSU

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, I can't say that is a surprise, as I said earlier. Glad you got both threads sorted now.

 

[vaderag]

Well, I can't say that is a surprise, as I said earlier. Glad you got both threads sorted now.

Indeed. Well, until the inevitable CPU/Mobo failure of 2023

Thanks for your help