PC doesn't power on after power surge

Dr.Tongue

Just like the title says, my apartment complex lost power during a storm, and it shut everything off. I disconnected my PC from the wall outlet and went to bed. Fast forward to morning now the PC doesn't power up. The USB ports are getting enough juice to charge my Xbox one controller and my headset, otherwise I don't see any lights on. I put in a new, known working PSU and the same happens, though I'm not sure I even have the power button hooked up right. Thoughts?

Gaslight

If you disconnected your PC after the power surge turned everything off it may be too late. The fact that the USB ports still work gives some hope, though.

When you say you don't see any lights on, what lights exactly do you mean. Many motherboards have a small light (the one on my Asus mobo is green) that illuminates when the motherboard is connected to a working, active PSU... whether the system is on or not, I think. Does yours?

Dr.Tongue

I don't believe so...but the case has a small LED that is on as long as it's getting power I believe. The Ethernet port usually lights up as long as the motherboard is getting power too I think....it's something I never really paid attention to until my pc crapped itself basically :P

spool32

Questions:

Do you plug your PC into a power strip, or directly to the wall?

Have you tried another device like a hair dryer or a fan or a radio plugged into the same plug? Into the same plug in the strip? If you have a strip you'll need to try both.




If you do have a power strip, the breaker might be tripped on it, or it might have failed. Check for a red button on the strip, press it.


If you don't have a strip, and you verify that other powered devices work with the plug, then plug your power supply into the wall while completely disconnected from the PC and see if its fan turns on. Then plug one of your case fans into the PSU and see if the fan turns on. If all this works, then plug only the motherboard connectors in, and see if the PC does anything - CPU fan starting, that sort of thing. Then connect the video card power, and see what happens. If it'll POST with just these things on, and you can get into the PC's BIOS, then connect other devices one at a time until something fails, starting with the primary hard disk.


Somewhere between testing the plug and power strip, and connecting every device, you'll run into whatever part of the machine is broken.

Magus`

Also if you don't have an anti-surge strip, they are relatively inexpensive. Actual UPS are significantly more pricey and, depending on the function of your PC, not strictly a necessity.

Dr.Tongue

I've tried plugging the PC directly into the wall with both power supplies, and in different wall outlets, with the same problem. I haven't tried plugging the PSUs into the wall by themselves, so I'll have to try that. My cable modem works in all the outlets I tried. I thought my power strip was anti surge but I guess not.

Magus`

I would see if you could get a loaner PSU. Assuming hardware damage did take place, it's reasonable that your PSU took the majority of it. Past that you'll have to do a process of elimination, as noted earlier.

Gaslight

Magus` wrote: »

I would see if you could get a loaner PSU. Assuming hardware damage did take place, it's reasonable that your PSU took the majority of it. Past that you'll have to do a process of elimination, as noted earlier.

He said he used a different PSU that he knows to be working.

The Crowing One

I haven't seen anyone ask, but if the PC POSTing at all? i.e. are there any little "beeps" when you hit the power button or nothing at all? If no beeps it is almost certainly an issue with the Mobo. You can google the model and beep pattern (i.e. one long, two short beeps) and get a translation of what the Mobo is telling you is wrong.

Also, there are usually power/reset/ccmos buttons on the mobo. Are they backlit and does hitting them directly do anything different?

Could you basically describe what happens when you hit power, step by step?

Magus`

Gaslight wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

I would see if you could get a loaner PSU. Assuming hardware damage did take place, it's reasonable that your PSU took the majority of it. Past that you'll have to do a process of elimination, as noted earlier.

He said he used a different PSU that he knows to be working.

Ah sorry, must've overlooked that. Feel free to disregard.

Tofystedeth

Dr.Tongue wrote: »

I've tried plugging the PC directly into the wall with both power supplies, and in different wall outlets, with the same problem. I haven't tried plugging the PSUs into the wall by themselves, so I'll have to try that. My cable modem works in all the outlets I tried. I thought my power strip was anti surge but I guess not.

Antisurge power strips are meant to deal with surges resulting from grid problems or bad building wiring/distribution. If you lost power due to say, a very close lightning strike then it probably got overwhelmed. There's not really any consumer grade device that can cope with that kind of surge.

That said, I've seen some computers, mostly business desktop Dells that would refuse to turn on after they suddenly lost power. Those we had to completely unplug and let sit for a few minutes for it to reset whatever protection it had before it turned on. Now, yours had been sitting unplugged for a while so that clearly isn't the solution, but try unplugging it, then holding down the power button for about 10 seconds, then plug it back in and attempt to turn it on.

Dr.Tongue

So plugging just the PSUs in the wall doesn't do anything. I've just had the motherboard and the fan plugged in, and the only things that get power are the USB ports. I held in the power button for 15 seconds and it still isn't coming up. Hitting the power button doesn't do anything as far as I can tell. I'm thinking the motherboard is dead now but I'm not sure why all of the USB ports work.

The Crowing One

USB ports suck power from a source. It actually makes sense that a mobo could power ports and not the PC, itself, with many recent mobos.

If there are no beeps and nothing, it is certainly a mobo issue. Replace it and I bet your rig will be back to normal soon.

Skeith

Try to replace with the same model of mobo if at all possible. That way you won't have to muck with too many settings.

The Crowing One

Skeith wrote: »

Try to replace with the same model of mobo if at all possible. That way you won't have to muck with too many settings.

Eh, if you can buy a better mobo. Mobos are often the black sheep of building! Microcenter gave you a free one, cool! They didn't give you a good one...

The Crowing One

I can't edit here, but the idea of not having to mess with settings when even going same-model to same-model is kinda not the case. ANY new mobo will be a new mobo... same difficulty.

Zilla360

It sounds like either portions of your motherboard are fried/shorted, or certain voltage rails (twenty volt/five volt) on your PSU have gotten cooked by the storm.

You're probably looking at replacing either the PSU, motherboard, or both.

spool32

Yes, if you've followed my set of steps from earlier and you think the motherboard is damaged, you're going to need to replace at least that. Possibly also your PSU (it's hard to know if there are blown resistors in there), and who knows what other components. Possible things you may find are also ruined:

PSU
CPU
CPU fan
Some, or all, of your RAM
Video card
Other expansion cards
Some, or all, of your hard disks
DVD drive

You'll probably have noticed that I listed all the other components in a computer...



With luck, the motherboard fried without damaging anything else but don't be surprised if you continue to have issues going forward, especially weird problems with unreliability or inexplicable hard crashes or resets. If you have the funds and access to a PC repair shop that has a guy on staff who knows how to examine the board electrically, ask him to put a multimeter on it and see what's up just to be certain.

Also once you get it out of the case, you might want to get a very strong light source and do a rigorous, careful inspection of the board's components to see if you can learn just what died. Look for chips with bubbles or deformations instead of being flat like you'd expect... resistors with burn marks or bulges, charred spots on the PCB backing... you might not learn anything, but at least you'll know what happened. While you're at it, examine your RAM for visible damage to the chips. Might save you some annoyance down the line.

Good luck!

Skeith

The Crowing One wrote: »

I can't edit here, but the idea of not having to mess with settings when even going same-model to same-model is kinda not the case. ANY new mobo will be a new mobo... same difficulty.

Suppose I've just been lucky.

bowen

Typically you get 'the same motherboard' so you don't have to muck around with drivers in windows.