PC won't POST.

[Ragnoros]

Alright woke up this morning and my PC won't POST. After trying an old Vidcard old RAM and no HDD or DVD connected the thing has only POSTed twice and that was both with no Video installed, however I can't get it to post consistently. Even with just RAM and CPU installed.

Anything I should try before I get another MoBo? I will probably try another PSU I have sitting around, but with the one I have installed spinning up 3 fans and the HDD/DVD I can't see how it would be the issue.

Also any advice on motherboards? I hate shopping for them. Not as fun as Video Cards and the like. Will probably check out the other threads you guys were talking about building PCs in.

[Zetor]

Well, I'm no hardware wiz, but it's either a heating problem, a power supply problem, or a motherboard problem. Do you get any beeps at all, or does it stay silent?

I had this happen to my PC earlier this year (it just wouldn't boot up one day), after many sleepless nights trying to find the problem (replacing pretty much every piece other than the MB/CPU with bits from my old PC), I just took it back to the store, where they found out that the MB was faulty. It was somehow able to power the peripherals, but not the CPU itself. They RMA'd it and the new one has been working just fine since.

Other things you can try: check the voltage coming from the PSU with a multimeter (not really necessary if you have a spare PSU to try); memtest the RAM sticks in another PC; remove the cooler + CPU, re-apply the thermal grease, then put it back again.

Oh yeah, if you buy a new MB, I wouldn't get anything made by ASUS. Of all the people I know whose MBs died at one point (including mine), it was always an ASUS board.. not that correlation implies causation, or anything. See also http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070203235936112&board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us and
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070203214236675&board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us


-- Z.

[Ragnoros]

Thanks man.  Updates tho. After trying my video card in another PC it worked fine so i stuck it back in this one. With different different RAM from a working system. Booted fine. So I put the original RAM and it booted fine again.

So now, back exactly the same way it was when I woke up and it's working fine. So what? Did it just want attention? Motherboard about to give out? Stupid PC.

[Ookii]

You reseated everything.

When troubleshooting POSTING, you can tell a lot by what you hear.

Nothing at all - PSU

PSU's fan spins up but nothing, has to be CPU, MOBO, or RAM

You get sounds (the first two are fine if you get beeps generally), well depends on what they are. 2 beeps followed by 5 is a video card problem I believe.

So if you can recall which of these applied this morning you should be able to narrow it down.

[WayAbvPar]

In my limited experiences, intermittent problems are almost always PSU-related.

[Trippy]

Oh yeah, if you buy a new MB, I wouldn't get anything made by ASUS. Of all the people I know whose MBs died at one point (including mine), it was always an ASUS board.. not that correlation implies causation, or anything. See also http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070203235936112&board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us and
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20070203214236675&board_id=1&model=M2N-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

They also own 1/3 of the entire PC desktop motherboard market and have an overwhelming majority of the "enthusiast" motherboard market. You would expect more failures of their boards in absolute numbers because they sell a lot more of them.

Forum anecdotes mean nothing as well. I can go to any of the other manufacturer boards and find similar complaints about their boards there.

[Furiously]

EVGA treated me wonderfully when I had a motherboard of theirs go wonkey.

[Zetor]

They also own 1/3 of the entire PC desktop motherboard market and have an overwhelming majority of the "enthusiast" motherboard market. You would expect more failures of their boards in absolute numbers because they sell a lot more of them.

Forum anecdotes mean nothing as well. I can go to any of the other manufacturer boards and find similar complaints about their boards there.

Hence my disclaimer (I only linked those two threads because both were related to my problem at the time similar to the OP, not because I wanted to say "ZOMG asus is teh suk, look at how many motherboards they have b0rked!!11"). It's not only about MB failure rate either, but the complete lack of tech support except for a web forum (which is basically a 'self help' forum anyway) and the possibility to RMA the faulty motherboard, which is a 2-3 week period of uncertainty followed (maybe) by the problem getting fixed, at least in my region (Central Europe).


-- Z.

[schild]

I refuse to jinx myself, but let's just say I'm shocked that anyone would knock an ASUS mobo.

[Xuri]

I've been a great advocate of ASUS in years past, but the P5K Premium board I bought a few weeks ago is so fucked up it doesn't even work with half the harddrives currently on the market (this is a fault with the motherboard in general, not just my specific copy of it). So my own confidence in them have certainly taken a hit.