Stumped :(

[LA_MERC_Drax]

So I went over to my friend's house today to help him out with his rig, he was having trouble getting it to boot after updating his bios. So I went into his Bios to check his HDD configs (he has two solid states in Raid), and come to find out, they were set right, so I set it to Raid. While checking to see which SATA ports each HDD was plugged into, I had to take the window off his box to check that, the computer just shut off on its own. Tried to power it back on, and nothing. So I've tried all of these things, so far, nothing works. The only thing I can tell is happening is that the light on the power supply is showing their is power and the power button on the mobo is light up green, so it appears some power is making it to the mobo.

1st thing - unplugged, tried to power on to drain the power, plugged in 1 min later, nothing.
2nd thing - Pulled the ram chips, tried to boot, nothing
3rd thing - Pulled all of the motherboard power plugs, plugged them back in snuggly, nothing.
4th thing - Pulled power to every peripherial, leaving only the mobo plugs in, nothing
5th thing - pulled the cmos battery for a few mins, put back in, nothing

One thing I did notice after awhile, the window fan was plugged into a systemfan slot. Would pulling that fan while the system was powered up cause an issue?? I'm down to 2 things if I can't figure out anything else, first is change the power supply, if that doesn't work, send the mobo back to MSI for a new one....

Any advice is appreciated

[LA_MERC_Spark]

is this a home built system? when you say window do you mean the side of the case? If so is there by chance an intrusion switch?

[LA_MERC_Spark]

still should come on and give you a warning at the POST

[LA_MERC_Onji]

Dang. Its really sounding like that fan pull shorted out the MB :( I'm with spark, the MB should do something. when powered on.

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

The mobo should at least post "beep" if you have the PS/ 1 stick of ram and a graphics card "Don't hook up the monitor" if it dont post, try other ram.. after that your pretty much down to the graphics card PS or the MOBO. If you have a spare graphics card try it, if no luck only 2 things left. :)


2nd thing - Pulled the ram chips, tried to boot, nothing BTW.. it wont post without at least 1 ram chip installed.

[LA_MERC_FragFood]

Ran into a very similar problem a while back - ALL high grade components, including motherboard, ram, PSU, everything. Machine would have LEDs on the mobo, barely kick the fans. Tried everything - swapped everything out onesy-twosy, but never the PSU - In the words of Chase bank, it was "Too good to fail." Fixed by replacing the PSU.

That one component has always been a "don't scrimp on it" choice for me, but this time, remember that even a good (Corsair 650W) brand can have issues. Machine's been running fine since the PSU swapout.

Throw a decent PSU in there to test, then replace with a good one if necessary.

[LA_MERC_Drax]

I'll check for a trip switch, that could be something that may have done it, plus i've been working with the window removed the whole time...
It's a home built system, and yes, by window i mean the side of the case. And when I pulled the window fan out, it took another 30 secs before it shut down and never turned back on, so would that be enough prove to show that the mobo didn't fry?

As far as not having a ram chip in, from what I know in the past, if you take out both ram chips and turn it on and it fires up, it should give you a few beeps telling you it didn't pass the ram check. I believe you can power a computer up with just a mobo and power supply, and it will turn on the fans atleast and start beeping with errors.

Lastly, the power supply is an Antec 1200W, it's not even kicking out any power, like no fans, no nothing. The system is like 3 months old, was running great, so that's why it has me stumped. Will try a few more things and update if I have more issues.

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

Drax, I guess I should have been more clear on the ram statement, I meant it wont "pass post" ... and yea you should get some errors W/O the ram installed, if your not even getting that then its not the ram :)

[LA_MERC_Spark]

I ALWAYS have a spare PSU around... it doesn't take much of a voltage variation to fark things up. Just scoop up a cheap one and have it for testing.

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Did you plug a fan back into the system fan plug? Maybe the board thinks it failed?

PSU may be the trick. Does it have a fuse? It is still under warranty though so I would NOT crack the case on the PSU. Even a little overvoltage or grounding can make PSU's do funny stuff.

[LA_MERC_FragFood]

Quickie check on the PSU - (Disconnect everything but the AC cord) On the mobo end, short the GREEN wire to any GROUND (black) one. That should kick the PSU on. Check your voltages with a DVM and see if they're in the realm of reality. +12, -12, +5, maybe -5, +3.3. Or spend a few bucks and get a PSU tester

1 - If all OK, plug just a drive into it and see if it spins up, keep checking +12 and +5 when you do that (or the +3.3 if it's a 2.5" drive).

2 - If that works, take out the mobo and put it on cardboard to insulate it. Plug the PSU into it and short the board's power switch pins together. See if it goes.

Work from there and see what happens.

[LA_MERC_DocSparky]

If that doesn't work, just take 2 wires and jam them into an electrical socket. Yea, it might hurt a little, but you'll have a good excuse to stop testing the MB. :stick

To me, it's a little ironic that this thread comes up at Halloween. This is something of a scary story for IT guys. "Not posting?!, NOOOOOO!"

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

Just when you thought it was safe to Log off...

ERROR, WIDOWS has encountered a problem and needs to close... IF this was the first time this has happened...........MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!