What is wrong with my PSU

Ok, so first off, I'm pretty decent with computers, Ive done some basic tests and so far nothing has solved my problem.

Anyways,
Go to school today etc etc. get home and notice that my room is awfully quiet. Oh, the computer is not turned on! That's weird because my PC is on 24/7.

Tried to turn it on and nothing. First thought is that the psu died. So I take it out and try to turn it on with nothing connected. (green/black wire paperclip trick) And nothing happened.

Then, I thought, maybe the fuse blew in the psu so I check that and it was fine.

After I did that I checked all the wires and every one of them was getting 12v or the appropriate voltage.
Funny, 10 minutes ago it wasn't getting power at all. So I put the paperclip back in and everything was working again. The fans were going etc.

So finally I plug everything back into my pc and I get a green light on my motherboard, turn it on, nothing. :confused I keep trying and I get nothing except a little blue light from one of my fans, but it only flickers for a second.

MYSTERY
My guess is that the psu is dead.

hurr is my specs
500w psu (it's a cheap brand, probably why it's doing this)
Asus socket 939 a8n sli-premium
amd dual core 2.1 ghz
1gb corsair ram
geforce 9800 gtx+

 

If you're lucky, then the PSU is the only thing that has died. If you're unlucky, the PSU has fried some major system components.

Rule of thumb is allocate funds for a PSU before anything except the motherboard and processor when building a PC. This way, you can buy a good one.

Have a look at this list for good PSU brands: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=131195

 

What's the "green/black wire paperclip trick"?

Is that really necessary? Besides saving some energy, I'd bet leaving a computer on 24/7 also shortens the life of a PSU.

Did you have good surge protection on your PC?

 

Guess it cant be a power problem, but what you describe happens to me when I use an underpowered/cheap psu. Will sometimes go on for a while then goes as you describe. The other thing that causes this in my experience is when you have as collinsl says fried your system. Try a decent larger psu, though 500 is decent.

 

Shutting down and restarting a PC stresses ALL the system components more than leaving it running and stressing the PSU a little bit.

And some people need to leave their computers on 24/7.

 

Yep, and the same logic can be applied to televisions, steroes, etc. Do you leave on all the time for this reason? I think not. Obsolescence is going to be the demise of his computer long before this stressing from turning it off and on.

I'll also assert that turning it off and on might have actually prevented this by giving him clues that his PSU was on the decline. Before I replaced the PSU in my desktop system, I would occasionally press the power button to turn it on and it would initially appear to start but not complete startup; the red LED on front would show as being on but nothing else happened. I would hold the power button for 4 seconds to turn power off, wait about 20 seconds, and press the power button again. This second time, it would start normally. This freqency of this happening was perhaps once a month the first few times it happpened, but then it started happening more frequently. Replacing the PSU stopped that behavior. If I had left my computer running 24/7, I may not have seen this sign of a problem developing.

That's I asked him whether it's really necessary.

 

Ok guys, after putting a new PSU in my PC I have a feeling it may not be my psu. It did the exact same thing to a different 450 watt thermaltake PP.
processor dead maybe?

 

You have not answered this question:

Were you using any surge protection?

 

I don't think so....just a power strip.
something fried?

 

Actually I heard that shutting it down constantly shortens the life

/edit someone already pointed that out

 

Routinely shutting down at night will not shorten it's life. Go back and read my full comments on this.

 

Routinely shutting down at night will not shorten it's life. Go back and read my full comments on this.

Most power strips are supposed to provide some protection against power surges that could be harmful to a computer. But, power strips can lose their effectiveness over time and exposure to power surges; also, the cheapest ones may not be very good.

 

Ok, after hours of dicking around, I have come to the conclusion that
1) The mother board was shorting out
2) the motherboard is dead



I am using the same PSU as before in a different machine with the same components (besides the motherboard of course)