System not powering up/No video/No Beep codes

[AFCSOFME]

It could be me or it has been a while since I been schooled in the obvious of troubleshooting but I have a problem and hoping I can bounce it off some of you here to see if I am missing something...

Customer calls me and states the PC wont work anymore, he recalls having it on and seeing "triangles and squares" on his monitor, then it shut off a minute later.
I went to his home, he has it hooked into a surge protector, it is a systemax 3 years old in age. He has everything hooked up correctly he even has an external zip drive attached. When I turned the system on, nothing happened. I reattached all the cords to the surge protector and got nothing. With the PSU not making any noise, the fan not spinning he agreed to have me bring the system to the shop and take another look.

First thing I do is test the power supply with the tester and it claims everything is OK, and the system powered on including the exhaust fan and heat sink fan.
I went ahead and hooked everything back up, the system fired up but no signal on to the monitor and the monitor goes to sleep mode. I reset the defaults on the monitor to be safe and still got nothing.
I ran the system for a few minutes to see if anything was hot in an obvious way to indicate an overheated part, and also checked to see if anything was cold such as the CPU and heat sink area, they seemed fine.
Then with the aide of some troubleshooting charts I have had it seemed obvious the on board video might not be functioning. So I put in a video card hooked it up and still have the same results.
So now I am stumped but also question if I overlooked something obvious. I am not sure if I should replace the power supply, swap out a cable somewhere or look further into seeing if there is something with the motherboard. I did not notice any obvious swollen capacitors though.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[comprx]

Just because there are no swollen caps doesn't mean there isn't something wrong.

Does it have a pc speaker? that's helpful but not necessary.

First thing I would do is eliminate every variable you can. If there are cards, pull them. Same goes for ram. also unplug all of the drive cables. and use a known good PSU (Not the one in the unit)

Now turn it on with nothing on it except the PSU. If it has a pc speaker, and the board has any chance of working it will freak out with post beeps (usually repeating long beep) that there is not any memory installed. If there is no pc/cmos speaker plug a stick of known good memory in. Again if it works at all you should now get video out of the onboard vga. If you still don't you can say with pretty good certainty that there is a motherboard issue. (slight chance it is the CPU but not usually)

If the board is working at this point you know it is something you unplugged and can work from there.

 

[Xander]

Power supply testers only tell you if a PS is bad; they're not so great at telling you when one is still good.

Swap in a known-good one. You don't have to screw it in, just connect the cables.

 

[TLE]

It could be me or it has been a while since I been schooled in the obvious of troubleshooting but I have a problem and hoping I can bounce it off some of you here to see if I am missing something...

Customer calls me and states the PC wont work anymore, he recalls having it on and seeing "triangles and squares" on his monitor, then it shut off a minute later.
I went to his home, he has it hooked into a surge protector, it is a systemax 3 years old in age. He has everything hooked up correctly he even has an external zip drive attached. When I turned the system on, nothing happened. I reattached all the cords to the surge protector and got nothing. With the PSU not making any noise, the fan not spinning he agreed to have me bring the system to the shop and take another look.

First thing I do is test the power supply with the tester and it claims everything is OK, and the system powered on including the exhaust fan and heat sink fan.
I went ahead and hooked everything back up, the system fired up but no signal on to the monitor and the monitor goes to sleep mode. I reset the defaults on the monitor to be safe and still got nothing.
I ran the system for a few minutes to see if anything was hot in an obvious way to indicate an overheated part, and also checked to see if anything was cold such as the CPU and heat sink area, they seemed fine.
Then with the aide of some troubleshooting charts I have had it seemed obvious the on board video might not be functioning. So I put in a video card hooked it up and still have the same results.
So now I am stumped but also question if I overlooked something obvious. I am not sure if I should replace the power supply, swap out a cable somewhere or look further into seeing if there is something with the motherboard. I did not notice any obvious swollen capacitors though.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

This sounds to me like the PSU is not supplying enough power to the 12v rail. You shouldn't rely on PSU testers as they do not test the PSU when under load. Your best bet would be to replace the PSU with a known working one.

 

[TLE]

Ah you beat me to it Xander

 

[4ycr]

I have had that before, my PSU tester said all good but I put my test PSU on and it powered up. So now I always keep a PSU for testing

 

[comprx]

I failed the obvious test of just trying with a known good PSU before ripping all the guts out. though at least I mentioned using a known good in my drawn out diagnostic.

 

[TLE]

I failed the obvious test of just trying with a known good PSU before ripping all the guts out. though at least I mentioned using a known good in my drawn out diagnostic.

lol, always go for the obvious first, then start stripping out the attached devices.

 

[AFCSOFME]

Thanks for the responses so far, I have a good known power supply and I got my education on them testers too
I will take what has been posted here and see what I can come up with.

 

[AFCSOFME]

I hooked up a new power supply, got the same results, no beeps, nothing on screen. The heat sink fan and case fan do power on when they are hooked into the board.
When I pulled the memory (there were no cards) and unhooked all the drives one at a time, all I get is 1 long beep (lasts about 5 seconds) I had everything hooked up but the memory and still got the same long beep.
With the fans that are plugged in to the motherboard working (keep in mind all the testing I done here was with a good known power supply) at this point I am thinking a motherboard problem or a CPU problem, would that make sense and would there be a quicker way to tell if either is dead?

 

[Styxbound]

The great majority of the time if I've found if I can get a machine to post even once, I can eventually get it working. From what you've posted here I'd check the documentation on the board and properly clear the bios_just removing the battery does not work for all machines; I'd check the battery for both voltage and amperage. If clearing doesn't work the first time I'll try it 2 or 3 times again.

Even when the thermal paste is new or looks new it can be a problem; when nothing else is working I'll redo that. I'll also use spray cleaner on the cpu and socket; clean the ram and video card contacts with an eraser and spray cleaner; I'll try re-seating both a couple of times. Finally, once in a blue moon, if you just hit the power button and wait a while, the machine will come on. You can't very well do this with someone else's machine, but once in a while just unplugging everything and letting the machine sit for a few days will get it going again. Wish you luck_with these things sometimes luck is better than knowledge, I'm afraid.

 

[TLE]

I hooked up a new power supply, got the same results, no beeps, nothing on screen. The heat sink fan and case fan do power on when they are hooked into the board.
When I pulled the memory (there were no cards) and unhooked all the drives one at a time, all I get is 1 long beep (lasts about 5 seconds) I had everything hooked up but the memory and still got the same long beep.
With the fans that are plugged in to the motherboard working (keep in mind all the testing I done here was with a good known power supply) at this point I am thinking a motherboard problem or a CPU problem, would that make sense and would there be a quicker way to tell if either is dead?

Motherboard make and model number? As Styxbound has suggested, look up the beep code and work from there. I have a number of test boards and CPU's that I can swap out and test to work out which is the faulty component. I have only ever come accross 1 faulty CPU though.

 

[AFCSOFME]

Well I am discovering now when the power button is pushed it does starts to fire up and shuts right down (making it seem like you just didn't push it in long enough) but if I reach back toward the power button again and barley put my finger on it, it turns on and stays on, the wiring to the board for power and reset is correct, a tech has not touched his computer in over a year.
I am gathering the info on the motherboard it is an MSI, haven't found the model yet. Perhaps I am looking too far into the fact heat sink fan and case fan powering up

 

[Styxbound]

What you've just said hints at a bad switch. Did you check it, or maybe try another one, or just shorting the switch posts where it plugs in to the mb?

 

[AFCSOFME]

I checked that and used a new switch, new switch was fine, his computer is normal again as far as the switch seems to be so far.
I hooked a PCI card up again and am not getting any video, I am just trying to understand a MB issue if the fan is on at the CPU and the extra case fan, I could only find one reference that AMI BIOS is generating 1 beep for bad MB or PSU, but any MB i seen dead is dead, no fans, etc so I have a hard time grasping how a couple fans could work hooked to the MB but nothing else does. It will only beep if I pull the RAM. I can unhook anything else and I get nothing for beeps.
I don't want to get another MB and find out that it really isn't yet, the battery seemed a little loose so I pulled that and going to put it back in and check it out, I am not sure if I did that with all the moving around either.

 

[Domaro]

The system you're working on is relying on the integrated graphics, right? You might try clearing the CMOS. I had a board once where the graphics selection option in the BIOS was scrambled...

This sounds to me like the PSU is not supplying enough power to the 12v rail.

I too am seeing PSUs with inadequate power distribution cause all sorts of flaky behaviours, especially as the PSU ages. Look at the distribution chart for most of the cheepo PSUs, you'll see the bulk of the power directed to 3.3V and 5V rails. Then consider the low effeciency and age related performance reduction...

However, this typically impacts systems using discrete video cards and other expansion cards, I haven't seen this occur in a basic system relying upon integrated graphics.

 

[NWPhotog]

I am thinking a motherboard problem or a CPU problem,

Exactly.

would that make sense and would there be a quicker way to tell if either is dead?

Swapped with a known good part. If you don't have them quote customer both parts.

 

[AFCSOFME]

Yes the graphics are on board, I am going to try to clear the CMOS then, I was not sure if it would be worth the shot.
If that doesn't work then I am going to go back to the customer (I already told him this morning it could be the board or the CPU) and quote on both.

I need a brain kick though to help me clarify this a bit better, it has been a while since I got really in depth troubleshooting on a system majority has always been software, anyways, if the fans form the heat sink and case are firing up, no matter which power supply is hooked up is it still an indication the board can be dead or just not enough voltage? The system has a 350w power supply, and my only spare is a 350w, the only difference between what I have going and what he had going was he had an external zip hooked up to it and his all in one printer/fax. I had a thought at one point to grab a bigger power supply and try it but not sure if that really made any sense for something like this

I may check the other spare systems and see if I can do a quick CPU swap and if that fails provided I got a spare for this then I want to point at the mother board but I would just need to clean some cobwebs in my head here understanding how 2 small fans still can work.

Thanks again for the continued answers.

 

[AFCSOFME]

Ok did the CMOS trick got nothing I am still at square one I think I will safely bet a quote for both CPU and MB and have the customer decide where he wants to go with it. That seems to be my options at this point.

 

[ATTech]

Another thing to try is discharging the capacitors by removing all power sources and holding down the power button (or shorting the pins) for 30 seconds. I've fixed a healthy amount of non-posts by doing this.