I suspect I triggered a power surge through my Asus Aspire's on-board USB port by plugging a cable into it that was also plugged into a wall charger via a y-cable. The moment I did this, my PC turned off and pressing the power button would not turn it back on again. I unplugged everything from the USB ports and unplugged the computer power cord. When I plugged the power cord in again, I heard a mechanical initialization sound (the same sound I hear every time I start up the computer - probably the DVD drive?) and the processor fan started running at full speed, which is unusual. Pressing the power button has no effect at all. Since there is power going to at least some components, I suspect I fried the processor or something else on the motherboard.
Does anyone have any advice on where I should start in trying to diagnose and fix the problem? I don't want to start replacing things unless I have a sense of the problem first.
Does anyone have any advice on where I should start in trying to diagnose and fix the problem? I don't want to start replacing things unless I have a sense of the problem first.