[Spikeguy4]

Ok so here’s my problem. I built my own system from scratch in January
of 2008. So it's very new and it was working perfectly fine and had a
core temp. of 35-45 degrees Celsius depending on work load. About 3 weeks
ago a storm hit and my house went onto a brown out (50% of normal power) and
since a computer shows no sign of this except for slower performance. I didn't realize
since I was web surfing (nothing demanding) and I had no lights on in the room
since it was still daytime. About an hour later I realize what’s going on
and immediately shut down my computer. My power protection is basic, its
a power strip equip with a surge protector with six power jacks and a network
jack with an indicator light telling you if something is wrong with the
power. However, the strip is on the floor and I did not see if the light
was telling me there was a prob. Once my power was fixed my computer
worked fine for about 3 days then some notice showed up on the screen (kind of
like if you were to remove an ipod or external HDD it says "can't find
device try to re-connect" and it makes that dunn-dun noise) while it
was idling but I didn't see what it was then it completely froze
so I restarted it by turning off the power in the back since the front button
was unresponsive too. It started up after that but no screen then I tried
to restart again but couldn't get it to start. I also never installed the
speaker onto my motherboard because as far as I can see there is no built in
one and no jack for one; however, I have a speaker just no where to put it.
I have tried my psu, gpu, and grounded my system to check for shorts and there
all ok. My power supply also has this "super wonderful protection
device" that does not allow your computer to turn on if it detects a fault
or something wrong with the system, which I wasn't aware of until
recently. However I found out a way to "trick" it so I could
test my comp and I get no video display (not even BIOS/CMOS), no booting noise
(however it never really made much) and no speaker to check if its booting at
all :/. The fans turn on, LED's light up, and the HDD indicator
lights up (when I have it connected.) So I need to know the next step to take
is it the mobo? cpu? RAM? and is it because of overheating, shorts, etc?
I am totally lost at this point and I don't want to pay $70.00 to have this
store run tests on it. There is nothing on the mobo or other devices that
look damaged or warped as far as I can tell.


Specs:


Ultra X3 1000W PSU


EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS SSC 640MB PCIe x16 w/ dual link (NVIDIA)


XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Socket 775(Intel) ---> Tell me where
the onboard speaker goes because I can't tell. Does it even have one???


Intel Quad Core Kentsfield 2.4Ghz Q6600 CPU


Seagate 250GB Serial ATA w/ NCQ 7200/16MB/SATA-3G


Corsair TWINX 2048MB (2GB) PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz E.P.P.

[mphenterprises]

Hi SpikeGuy and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D





First, I have changed your Discussion title to give a clearer indication of your question. For future reference, please be as descriptive as possible in both the heading of your Discussion as well as the post itself. On the flipside of that, thank you for providing a very detailed account of your situation.

Also, congratulations on building your own computer. Now, let's get down to business:

From what I see here, two things happened 1) the Surge Protector was not sufficient enough to prevent any damage to your computer and 2) the manual shut down of your computer by flipping the Power Supply switch possibly corrupted the Operating System.

Now, as far as I know, all motherboards....especially more recent motherboards...have a connection for the onboard speaker. You would need to refer to the motherboard manual to determine exactly where it should go. I would gather that it would be where all the other motherboard connection are located, for example, the USB port connections, front audio port connections, and the HDD and Power connections. The onboard speaker would be connected by a four prong connection. More than likely, the motherboard is color coded so that you can easily find where it should go. Look where you connected the USB ports connectors and see if you can find a four-prong connection that is color-coded.

Now, you should never try and "trick" the computer or try to bypass the safety mechanisms in place to get your computer to turn on. The processes are there for a reason. From what you have detailed, I would first gather that the Power Supply may be shot. If the Surge Protector was doing its job, your computer should have shut off, even during a brown-out. However, since it did not, the fact that you continued to use the computer coupled with the manual shut off of the Power Supply led me to my first suggestion.

The only way (scratch that, the most convenient way) to check to see if the Power Supply is damaged is to replace it with another Power Supply. You should never put a potentially damaged Power Supply in a fully functioning computer. Doing so could damage the hardware components of the other computer. There are devices that can manually test the Power Supply but, for the life of me, I have not found a reliable means to do this.

Finding another Power Supply is easy. Finding one that can support your current set up is not. You have a Kilowatt Power Supply. Based on your current set up, I would say the bare minimum Power Supply you should consider (if and when you do get a Power Supply) is 700-750 Watts. Although not expensive, a Power Supply of this rate will not be "cheap." I could not find any Power Supplies within that range on newegg.com.

Finally, you mentioned that a store would charge you $70 to test what may be wrong. Well, sorry to say, there really is no way to avoid paying something to figure this out. A Power Supply within the range I mentioned will be at least $70, if not more. That is not to say this would be the ultimate fix. If anything else is damaged, you would have to replace that as well. I presume that this company would charge you $70 for a diagnosis and then whatever else it would take to repair the issue, including parts and labor. Either way you slice it, you are going to end up paying something to get this resolved.

[Spikeguy4]

Well first off I would like to thank you for taking all the time and effort to help me and change the title (i'm very new to this and i'll get better at the description) . However, your going in the exact same direction I went in when this whole ordeal started. I have tested and replaced my psu to the manufacturer as well as the same thing with my gpu to make sure it wasn't shot. I looked up my motherboard and I have found out that my board dosn't in fact have a speaker jack, really stupid I know. Also, I'm starting to question if the power brown-out had anything to do with this at all... Lots of people seem to have had the same problem I'm having with this board. I don't know maybe it triggered it to happen but it might have been bound to happen one day. I got it off tigerdirect.com i'll set up a link if you want to get a closer look. And, its really a matter of time or money since I have warranties on these products I can return them and hope the issue is resolved or have the place try to repair it at the $70 cost and yes the price would go up if somthing's wrong so prob. like $100+ once thats done. So, I think i'm going to try my luck again by sending in the motherboard (just seems way overpriced to have someone put a random working part in, run it,then see if it did anything if not move on to another part, in my opinion.)
XFX nForce 680i LT SLI


Thanks so much for your help I only wish I would of come here sooner so I could of easily ruled out some options and saved alot of time.

I'll let you know what happened after i get it replaced and go form there.

Also, thanks for letting me know how much power you think my system needs because thats one area I didn't really know how to check for/tally up the total. I just got the 1k psu because I knew my system needed better than average power and I will one day want to upgrade and even go full SLI which demands alot. Since i'm not really sure would you think this power back-up would be good to run my system, 1 monitor (ViewSonic 22" LCD 2000:1 5ms response rate), modem and router off of? (Linksys Wireless N router and roadrunner supplied modem, not sure what exactly)

Ultra 2000VA Backup





By the way nice computer man! Love the case and damn you got alot of memory! Vista, eh its ok but whats really confusing was the new Microsoft Word with the ribbion style. Took me twice as long to finish an essay just becasue i didn't know where anything was, :^0 .

[mphenterprises]

Spikeguy4 said:

>

Quote

Well first off I would like to thank you for taking all the time and effort to help me and change the title (i'm very new to this and i'll get better at the description) .

>
>



With Pleasure.

Spikeguy4 said:

>

Quote

I'll let you know what happened after i get it replaced and go form there.

Definitely. If you already isolated the motherboard (and it's under warranty) absolutely send it back. Chances are this issue will be covered by the warranty and you will be right as rain in no time. Please keep us posted on any new developments.

Spikeguy4 said:

>
Also, thanks for letting me know how much power you think my system needs because thats one area I didn't really know how to check for/tally up the total. I just got the 1k psu because I knew my system needed better than average power and I will one day want to upgrade and even go full SLI which demands alot.





With Pleasure. If you would like to learn more about the importance of the Power Supply, please feel free to review this Document {document:id=1123}. I have a Kilowatt Power Supply. I know I am not pushing anywhere near that 1000 Watt limit (maybe reaching 750-800 Watts). However, I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.






>
Since i'm not really sure would you think this power back-up would be good to run my system, 1 monitor (ViewSonic 22" LCD 2000:1 5ms response rate), modem and router off of? (Linksys Wireless N router and roadrunner supplied modem, not sure what exactly)



Ultra 2000VA Backup




I personally do not provide hardware component or software application recommendations; however, I am sure other forum members will see this Discussion and provide any information they can.







>
By the way nice computer man! Love the case and damn you got alot of memory! Vista, eh its ok but whats really confusing was the new Microsoft Word with the ribbion style. Took me twice as long to finish an essay just becasue i didn't know where anything was, :^0 .
>
>




:D Thanks. I am very proud of it and the work I have put into it. Computers (and computing) is my passion and it makes me feel good to know that I was able to put that system together.












I will mark this Discussion as "Assumed Answered." If there is any new revelations that require more investigation, please let us know. Good luck.

[Flashorn]

Hey Spikeguy!!



If you would like to know how much power you really need from a UPS device



try using this site to calculate the amount of units needed:



apc.com/ups selector .





FLASHORN.

[coastie65]

Hey mph, I found a bunch of ( well 3 anyway) 700w - 750w PSU's at newegg. They were right on the first page too. One was a corsair. He didn't say if it a was a momentary or prolonged brownout. Either way, there is generally a resultant power surge following a brownout. Those power strips w/ antisurge protection are not all they're cracked up to be for the most part. There are some good ones out there, but I don't put a lot of trust in most of them. That is why I went to a UPS. After reading through his post, it seems as if the problem got worse at each startup attempt until it finally wouldn't startup. I'm wondering if he had any periphials, such as a printer plugged into the power strip and if they still work. The PSU may well have been toasted, but my gut feeling tells me it may go deeper. coastie

[mphenterprises]

coastie65 said:

>

Quote

Hey mph, I found a bunch of ( well 3 anyway) 700w - 750w PSU's at newegg. They were right on the first page too.

>
>




Hi Coastie. Thanks for that. We probably used different search criteria. Can you include a link to the search results?

[coastie65]

Well here goes: www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?=58&name=Power-Supplies I don't know if the link will work or not. If not, go to www.newegg.com when you get to home page, scroll down to the computer hardware category and click on power supplies. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Okay, those did not work; however, I did a broader search and found the following:

700-800 Watt Power Supplies

[coastie65]

Hey mph, I just copied the url. Apparantly it doesn't work. The second method should have gotten you to where I was at though, as that was pretty straight forward and was what I did originally. There were three pages of PSU's and 700w - 750w side by side begining with a Corsair. Besides, Newegg wouldn't dare tell me they didn't have what I was looking for :^0 . coastie

[coastie65]

Just followed your link. See what a proper search will do? You hit the jackpot. :^0 !http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1! coastie

[mjd420nova]

The power supply has surely taken a hit. It could just be a capacitor that has gone bad and is allowing too much ripple(AC on top of the DC voltage) through to the motherboard. This can cause a failure of the capacitors on the motherboard and any of the plugin cards and memory too. It could also cause all sorts of problems with devices plugged into the USB ports too. This can be quickly checked with a meter, just set the meter to read AC voltage and connect it to the 12 volt and 5 volt supplies. I really shouldn't read anything but zero. To prevent problems like this in the future, invest in a cheap UPS. It doesn't have to be very big, just so it has an alarm on it to let you know when power is reduced and it will supply some power for a short period to allow you to shut down before damage can be done. The UPS would also provide some isolation in the case of a lightning strike, however remote that might seem.

[Spikeguy4]

Ok thanks everyone who helped me

My computer is now fixed and as it turns out it was my motherboard (XFX nForce 680i LT SLI) that was bad.

It seams the brown out may only have been the catalyst to trigger the manufacturing failure or to speed up the inevitability of it failing because there was no evidence or damage to any part or other part in my computer to show power damage. Also, other people who have had this board say they have had the same problem without any reasoning, just bad manufacturing.

Either way I don't care anymore because i'm up and running again and couldn't be happier!

Thanks again to everyone who helped!

Later,

Spikeguy4

[rgreen4]

Glad it worked out. Enjoy the computer.

[coastie65]

Hey Spikeguy, Glad to got it resolved and all is good. Yeah, those brown outs and resultant power surges can play heck with your electronics as you found out. I would suggest investing in a good UPS to prevent this in the future. I quit relying on those power strips. coastie

[alchav21]

Hi Spikeguy,

That's great your computer is fixed, but did you resolve this or take it in to someone? Also did you replace the MB with the same one or did you put in a different one? Power is important, but I thought everyone paid too much attention to that aspect.

ALC

[oldfellow]

About 5 years ago the local power supply became very prone to volage sags (brownouts) and I quickly purchased an APC brand UPS for my Computer.

It was a good investment,never lost a beat. It gives me the warning beeps when a power failure happens, but other than that I never notice it.

I think it has saved my computer from some nasty power fluctuations.

Upgraded my computer (bigger ,better,faster) and invested in a more powerful APC UPS, and given the original to my daughter.

A UPS is like a seat belt in your car, if you need it and don't have it , then you may have fatal results! :(

[coastie65]

Hi, I agree that a UPS is a really good investment. I have had one for quite some time and it is a good thing to have. I am going to get another for my HDTV, PS2 & PS3 as well. coastie65

[earthbru]

I have been toying with the idea of getting a UPS for my media equipment for years.

Two things have discouraged me: the fact that they tend to be so big (though they are getting smaller), and that beeping you referred to.

If the power went out and the UPS kept beeping my wife would complain until I committed suicide.

I have also been looking for one for my inlaws. They use a laptop so it is not for the PC but they also depend on Vonage for their phone service so I wanted to get one for the modem. The problem is still the beeping. My MIL has no more patience than my wife.

[coastie65]

:D Due to my deafness, I can't hear the beeps. If the power goes out I am not usually aware it unless I have the TV on and it gets quiet. The light I have on this desk is also plugged in to the UPS, so it will remain on as well. I have unknowing been on this thing when the power went out and it suddenly shut down ( after the battery ran down). I have a battery back up unit for the internet that is part of the FiOS set up. I don't even hear the beeps at start up when the computer goes through post either. coastie