Pc won't boot up

[eversmilinggoutham]

hey guys, my 4 year old pc just ran into a trouble. It won't boot up! Nothing appears on my moniter after switching on. All i get is the blinking power led. Blink rate is once per second and it does this until i disconnect the power. No beeps or any other indicators. It's just the power led blinking every second. Here are the specs

Core 2 quad Q6600 @2.4ghz
2gd DDR2
Intel DG33FB mobo
250gb segate hdd 7200rpm
440w psu

Okay, i will tell u what happened exactly. I was running itunes, hackintosh in vmware 8.0 in windows 7 32bit with high priority in taskmanager. One of my buddies called me, so went to pick up. When i return, all i see is a blank moniter and that led blink. Really don't know what happened (blue screen may be? May not be?) My hackintosh used to crash frequently inside vm but never effected the windows.

I've looked for damaged capacitors and found everything to be fine. Disconnedted the power from board and reconnected it after few hours but this didn't help me.
It's just the frustrating power led.
Problem may be simple but just couln't figure it out. Often, simple problems are overlooked. Need your help guys!

 

[amuffin]

Have you tried re-seating your ram?

 

[eversmilinggoutham]

Have you tried re-seating your ram?

Yes, i did. Infact, after the failure, i disassembled everything, cleaned the dust inside and reassembled them. This didn't work. I had problems with ram before (just a loose contact) and problem with ram will be indicated by 3 beeps.

 

[amuffin]

Is there another power supply available to test?

 

[eversmilinggoutham]

Is there another power supply available to test?

Even me, at first, taught that my psu could be the culprit. But when i power it on, everyrhing lits up. Mean, cpu fan works, board led lits up, hdd spins (yes, i does but there is no blink in hdd's led this is one other factor to consider). This has killed my taught of psu being the culprit.

Unfortunately, at this moment, i don't have any other psu. Thanks, iam thinking to get a cheap psu upon your recomendation. Might be handy in future.

But for now, what could be other possible solution(s)?
Is there something you could tell about the power led blinks?

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

The only other thing it COULD be is the mobo (well, it could be the CPU, but that's VERY unlikely). If you have another computer, you may want to try the PSU in that system to help rule that out.

 

[eversmilinggoutham]

well, yeah, as mentioned, i taught of getting a cheap psu to try things out

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Yeah, I was just saving you the trouble (and cost, even if it's minimal) of getting a new one if you could test it in another system.

 

[eversmilinggoutham]

Does any one know what those led blink indications mean. I mean, like beep patterns specify a particluar malfunction. Like wise?

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Does any one know what those led blink indications mean. I mean, like beep patterns specify a particluar malfunction. Like wise?

No clue about that, honestly. At least beep codes can be searched for, but blink patterns, I don't know.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Just did a search on it, and got nothing for blink patterns except for this http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-010249.htm. That really doesn't say much, other than blinking 16 times when over heating is the problem.

Well, the link didn't work, but that's the only time it blinks, according to what it says.

Edit: Here we go. http://tinyurl.com/jd9nn

 

[smorizio]

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-025434.htm#display

 

[jsc]

OK. It's time to start from the beginning.

amuffin is right. Your PSU is the primary suspect. Best solution here is to borrow a known good PSU.

Work systematically through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If not, continue.
The following is an expansion of my troubleshooting tips in the breadboarding link in the "Cannot boot" thread.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems

I have tested the following beep patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different, but they all use a single short beep for a successful POST.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU. Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU. At this point, if you do not have a system (internal case) speaker, you really need one.

Make sure you plug the CPU power cable in. The system will not boot without it.

I always breadboard a new build. It takes only a few minutes, and you know you are putting good parts in the case once you are finished.

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU. Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps, LED's, or fan activity:

Check for line power at the PSU input. Extension cords, power strips, and power cords do fail.

If you have power and no beeps, suspect components in likely order are PSU, motherboard, and CPU.

Running fans and drives and motherboard LED's do not necessarily indicate a good PSU. In the absence of a single short beep, they also do not indicate that the system is booting.

At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%. The green wire should read 5 volts and drop to around 0 volts when you press the case power switch.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

A way that might be easier is to use the main power plug. Working from the back of the plug where the wires come out, use a bare paperclip to short between the green wire and one of the neighboring black wires. That will do the same thing with an installed PSU. It is also an easy way to bypass a questionable case power switch.

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card.

Silence, long single beeps, or series of short beeps indicate a problem with the memory. If you get short beeps verify that the memory is in the appropriate motherboard slots.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.
At this point, if the system doesn't work, it's either the video card or an inadequate PSU. Or rarely - the motherboard's PCIe interface.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

^ For what it's worth, I absolutely think it's the PSU too.

 

[eversmilinggoutham]

yeah, got it. It's the psu as expected. Thanks for the help guys