Hello all,
Recently I have had several friends bring me computers that will not power up. I am by no means a computer repair professional, but do it as a hobby on the side. My problem is that I do not have a lot of spare parts to troubleshoot with so I am seeking advice.
From what I understand, if you are not getting power at all it could be one of four things. Power Supply, Motherboard, CPU, or Memory. I am going to assume that the power button for the case could also go bad?
I do have a Power supply tester from Frozen CPU.com that is the virtual hideout edition. I unplugged all power connections from the motherboard except the 24 pin and tested the psu. I get all lights (+5v, +12v, +5VSB, PG, -12V, and +3.3V)
The only light I do not get is the -5V. I thought maybe the power supply was bad because of this until I read on the Frozen CPU website
"Note: Newer 24-pin power supplies often do not supply the -5V line anymore since it is no longer needed by modern motherboards. If your power supply tester's -5V LED doesn't light up with a 24-pin power supply, it is not an error. The power supply is functioning properly."
This first system I am working on is a HP Pavilion a1630n that is about 3 years old. My friend took it to Best Buy first and they tried a new power supply which did not fix the problem. They said they thought it was the mobo, but I do not know if they tried new memory or cpu in it.
I am going to try unplugging one stick of memory at a time and also switch slots around to see if I can rule out the ram. Any other troubleshooting advice? If it is mobo or cpu I doubt I can find the same parts to replace and would advise friend to start looking at new computer.
Thoughts?
Recently I have had several friends bring me computers that will not power up. I am by no means a computer repair professional, but do it as a hobby on the side. My problem is that I do not have a lot of spare parts to troubleshoot with so I am seeking advice.
From what I understand, if you are not getting power at all it could be one of four things. Power Supply, Motherboard, CPU, or Memory. I am going to assume that the power button for the case could also go bad?
I do have a Power supply tester from Frozen CPU.com that is the virtual hideout edition. I unplugged all power connections from the motherboard except the 24 pin and tested the psu. I get all lights (+5v, +12v, +5VSB, PG, -12V, and +3.3V)
The only light I do not get is the -5V. I thought maybe the power supply was bad because of this until I read on the Frozen CPU website
"Note: Newer 24-pin power supplies often do not supply the -5V line anymore since it is no longer needed by modern motherboards. If your power supply tester's -5V LED doesn't light up with a 24-pin power supply, it is not an error. The power supply is functioning properly."
This first system I am working on is a HP Pavilion a1630n that is about 3 years old. My friend took it to Best Buy first and they tried a new power supply which did not fix the problem. They said they thought it was the mobo, but I do not know if they tried new memory or cpu in it.
I am going to try unplugging one stick of memory at a time and also switch slots around to see if I can rule out the ram. Any other troubleshooting advice? If it is mobo or cpu I doubt I can find the same parts to replace and would advise friend to start looking at new computer.
Thoughts?
