Completely dead machine, also motherboard advice

Hello folks. My computer died this morning.
I went to the kitchen to make toast and came back to find it switched off. It won't turn back on, or respond in the slightest. The power button does nothing, the fans don't spin, nothing appears onscreen, it makes no sound etc. Certainly doesn't even attempt to boot, it just doesn't power on at all.

I've so far confirmed that neither my house's electrics, nor a blown fuse, are at fault. The issue is definitely in the box.

I've had a long history of various issues, recently including a complete failure to boot windows, constant BSODs on startup (DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) despite multiple reinstallations. Which I eventually did NOT fix, but worked around by installing Ubuntu which seemed able to ignore whatever hardware problems prevented it from booting.

I guess I was living on borrowed time, it's finally died. And taking it to a repair shop is probably the best thing I should do. But It's sunday and nothing is open today, so it can't hurt to ask for a little info in the meantime. What possible issues could cause the problem I'm seeing here? could the motherboard be at fault or is this necessarily a power supply thing? I'd hope the latter as those are easy to replace.

Also, in the rather likely event that the motherboard is dead, I might need some advice. My current hardware setup:

Mobo: Asus A8N-sli SE skt 939
Video: Nvidia 8800 GTS 512
Memory: 4x Elixir DDR 400 1GB RAM
CPU: Athlon 3800+ 2.2GHZ dual core.

As far as I'm aware, this particular board is known to have problems, and isn't manufactured anymore. Replacing it with another of the same could be rather difficult. But if I get something better, wouldn't I have to get a new CPU and memory as well? Any recommendations on a cheap modern-ish cpu/mobo/ram setup that will give me at least equivilant gaming performance?

 

You could try Ebay. The boards would most likely be used and you could try looking for similar type boards from other makers (Gigabyte, MSI, etc.) if the Asus model is prone to problems.

There are new motherboards that will let you reuse your CPU and video card but you would have to upgrade to DDR2 memory. 4Gb of DDR2 runs between $80-$90 on Newegg. A decent motherboard supporting your CPU (a socket AM2) can be had for $40-$50.

Sam

 

The obvious, first- have you made sure that all the power plugs are snug, the switch on the psu is on, and that your surge protector is still relaying power to anything else plugged into it?

Often when I have seen a motherboard die, the fans and lights will still work and the machine just won't post. It may certainly just be a limit in my experiences, but I've never seen a motherboard so dead that nothing happens, but I'm sure it's certainly a possibility especially considering your prior problems with the machine. Given all that though, I would personally try a new power supply first.

You didn't mention your budget or what you use your computer for. If it is indeed a dead mobo, you're looking at, as Sam said, at least a new set of ram (though 2 gb of ddr2 would be as fast as your 4gb of ddr), and that may or may not require a new psu anyway depending on what you have now. Let us know what you want out of your computer and it would be an easy thing to recommend you specifics that wouldn't cost you a great deal out of your budget!

 

All external plugs are snug. I've not taken the case off and done stuff inside yet. I guess it's possible something came loose, although it seems unlikely that it happened in the 2min period between leaving the room and returning

I see. This is good to know. Luckily, I have a new(old?) power supply stashed in a drawer. With previous issues, I mistakenly assumed the power supply was the problem and replaced it, though it was perfectly functional. I kept the old one though and can reinstall it. I will give it a try before I take it for repair

My budget would ideally be under £100 (I'm in the UK) and as cheap as realistically possible, though I don't have much choice but to pay whatever it takes really, because I need my PC.

I use it for just about everything, literally. A shortlist of uses it sees:

Gaming
rendering in blender
Running emulated apps in wine
internet browsing
Media centre functions
any other pc-ish stuff I may have forgotten.

I use it for both work and leisure, hence the video card (which was fairly high end when I got it, at least)

Now I'm confused. My motherboard and CPU are socket 939. Is AM2 compatible with that? It'd be the first I've heard of it

 

When a PC dies as it did in this scenario, where there is no response from the power switch and no beeps or fan spin, 90% of the time it is due to a dead power supply. If you have a 2nd PC, power it down and try the power supply in the 'dead' PC. Alternatively, you can grab a used power supply (for diagnostic purposes ONLY - I don't recommend using an old used power supply for full time usage) at your local PC shop (or even at a thrift store maybe!) for about $15 or less. If this revives the PC, buy a new power supply of the wattage appropriate for your hardware; you have a video that has its own power connector, so I'd recommend a unit in the 450w-550w range, and go with a reputable manufacturer: Antec, ThermalTake, Corsair, Seasonic are great brands with good warranties.... if it is NOT the power supply, you may consider buying a whole new rig to get into some current hardware. The 939 socket is very out of date and personally, I see no reason in spending money on 5-6 year old technology. With some prudent shopping, you can grab a new MB, CPU & RAM for under $250US that will be much faster that your old rig. However, most (if not all) new motherboards will only support two IDE/ATA devices (for example: a CD drive and DVD drive on the same cable) because the mobo has just a single IDE/ATA connector. Everything is SATA these days..... good luck! Let us know how it goes!

NO! Socket 939 is an obsolete platform. AM2, AM2+, and AM3 are the current socket platforms produced by AMD. The 939 CPU will NOT fit in to an AM2/AM2+/AM3 motherboard. Additionally, most new motherboards will not use the same memory you were running in the 939 system; newer boards use DDR2 (which is slowly becoming old) and DDR3. The 939 system most likely used DDR (or DDR1 as some people call it). This is why I suggested getting a new MB, CPU, and RAM. You can most likely use the rest of your components (hard drive, CD/DVD drives, case, etc) with the new parts.

 

I made the same mistake in seeing an unspecified athlon listed in another post and presuming it was an AM2/2+/3 socket type because I'm just not used to seeing 939s anymore! It would probably be possible to get you a new mobo, cpu, and ram for between 150-200GBP if that turns out to be needed, but the problem I might have in making suggestions is that all the places I order from are here in the states and would likely be more expensive shipping, but we can see. There are plenty of folks here from the UK so maybe one of them will pop in and suggest a UK retailer.

Let us know how the psu experiment goes!

 

This is good to know. I have an old 550w power supply that I can try. The one that originally came with the machine. I replaced it with a 700w one when, during previous issues, I mistakenly believed it to be the source of the problem.

not an issue. My three hard drives (and my dvd rw drive) are all SATA. all my SATA ports are filled. I only have one IDE device, the floppy drive. Which I never use and is unplugged anyway because my motherboard has a broken IDE controller.

These different standards are a confusing point for me. Can anyone estimate the cost/benefit of DDR2 vs DDR3, and between the different AM types. ie, would it be worth getting DDR3 memory? How much cheaper is DDR2, and how much more obsolete? likewise with the CPUs. Money is really a big issue here.

 

Progress update.

I changed the power supply, and everything worked perfectly. It booted flawlessly, and got a good night's use out of the machine.

There were some odd issues though. Firefox (which is installed in the system drive) wouldn't start. and the Ubuntu update manager came up with a HUGE list of updates needing installed, which notably included several firefox things. I cancelled the update, resolving to do it later. And later that evening I did try to do it, however the Update Manager would not work. It stalled indefinitely on loading the list of updates, and my hard drive made wierd noises. I shut it down for the night resolving to try again in the morning.

However, this morning, it won't boot. It does turn on, gets as far as showing the ubuntu logo, but then fails showing me a terminal screen with a variety of errors. The following is written by hand on paper and retyped here:

Then it waits for input with a Busy Box shell and to the left of the cursor is "initramfs"
My educated guess is hard drive failure. Anyone disagree? My system drive has been on the brink of death for ages. it failed a SMART test a few months back. Luckily I have three physical drives, and all my data (and most programs) are on the other two, so nothing of value was lost.

 

Hi

It definitely sounds like a hard drive issue. You could double check the power and SATA/IDE cable connections to the drive and motherboard/PSU. If those are good, then yes... the drive probably needs replacing.