My desktop was working fine earlier this morning and when I came back after a few hours it wouldn't turn on. I unplugged and plugged back everything inside my desktop and I made sure that it wasn't an outlet problem. My history with this computer is that I built it in 2012. A year ago, I found out that one of the GPU fans stopped working. What should I do? Could there be a problem with the power supply and I have to buy a new one?
Here's my PC build:
CPU: i5 2500k
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus - P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
RAM: Corsair - Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Intel - 330 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
GPU: Sapphire - Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master - HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case
PSU: Corsair - Professional 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

Is there an alternative to the PSU since I can't find one that's in stock? Or should I just build a new pc?

EDIT: Ok, so I bought a new PSU, the EVGA NEX650G. My computer turns on, but my mouse, keyboard, and monitor aren't connected even though I have the USB and stuff plugged in. Did I make a mistake while installing my new PSU?

7 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

A year ago, I found out that one of the GPU fans stopped working.

was it replaced, or did you continue to use it throughout the last year without a gpu fan?

if you ran without a gpu fan then i'd say your most likely candidate is gpu+motherboard combined. eventually running a gpu that hot will do some damage to both.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I didn't replace it. The other fan on the GPU worked though.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i'd still guess it was heat damage overtime though. sorry. =(

edit: you may get lucky and just have a bad gpu card preventing the mobo from booting, but tbh i'd say odds are higher it did damage to both.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Maybe a power supply issue? I remember having the same problem with my old pc, but I don't remember what was the problem.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Did you get yours fixed?

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yes, but temporarily. xD

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

tbh it could be any one of those items, and that's why most people probably won't bother posting. i'd say the absolute least likely would be storage or case, but i've even seen some of those rare case scenarios before as well. a short in the case grounding, a bad pcb stoarge board preventing mobo boot, bad psu, bad ram, bad mobo, the entire list is possible technically. but i'd say the top 3 would be gpu > mobo > psu.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Hi, the psu is a good lead to start. Especially if you wish to spare money. Now you would come to change only the psu. The investment would'nt be lost.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+1 to this. I would definitely start with the paperclip test and if the PSU fan spins, test the voltages with a PSU tester which you can usually get for about $15 to $20 USD. If the voltages aren't within expected ranges, replace the PSU.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

you should be able to boot up your desktop without a videocard anyway, I think, at least to the bios but probably to your desktop screen itself. if your pc doesn't turn on without a gpu plugged in I would imagine you have a deeper problem at that point.
faulty hardware.. dead hardware.. for all we know, multiple pieces of hardware in your PC might suddenly be dead

https://pcpartpicker.com/ is probably a good site based on what I hear people say. just enter your build and then see what power supply units you can choose from, but everything costs money

(nobody here is able to give you the real answer for why exactly it won't turn on. you basically need to check all the hardware you can yourself before you find out which piece is faulty assuming everything is plugged in. PSU is a good start, though)

also, most PSUs have an on/off switch sticking out from the case. are you sure some asshole near you didn't switch it off for some reason? that would.. prevent your pc from turning on, at least.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yea, I've used pcpartpicker before. And no, no asshole has been near my pc lol. I'm pretty sure the issue is with my PSU since that is what turns on my pc (which it isn't).

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Try to boot without the GPU.

Check your surge protector and fuse box as well, and/or try a different outlet. If it still wont POST without a GPU, then it's most likely the PSU but might be the mobo.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Try to boot without the GPU, then without a stick of memory (if you use 2 modules), then in different dim slots. If you have a spare PSU you can check if that causes the issue, or borrow one from a friend (if that's a possibility).

Do any fans turn on? Does it boot to BIOS and then turns off?

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Nothing turns on and it doesn't boot to BIOS.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Is the power supply doing anything? When you turn it on do the case fans spin? Do you have a fan that you can connect directly to a molex wire on the PSU and see if it is putting out any power at all?

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It indeed seems that it's a PSU issue.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I've had similar with PSU. If absolutely nothing is happening, I'd check PSU first. google "how to test psu" for a cool little trick to check.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It sounds like your PSU is fried.

Have you tried plugging in the power cable directly to the wall? Your surge protector could have an issue. I suppose there's a slim chance than you may just need clear the CMOS on your mobo by removing the battery, but if nothing at all turns on I doubt it.

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yeah, most likely PSU. You actually had a pretty good load on there for a 650W PSU (although it was a good PSU)...if you're running a PSU near capacity for a long time, you will wear it out. Remember that the rating on a PSU is generally its peak capacity. When building a gaming rig, I usually don't put anything in it less than 750W (I run 1.2KW in mine 😲💪🏻🤘🏻). Having some free capacity generally lengthens the life of the PSU.

Do you have a PSU tester? That would tell you if any of your rails are failing, right at the hardware level. They usually only cost about $15-$20, and are super handy to have around.

As for the advice to try to boot without the GPU...does your mobo have onboard video? Because if it doesn't, then that advice doesn't make any sense. I mean, yes, you might be able to post, but you won't have a way to view the results. If you like to count beeps, then go ahead, but that's still a tough way to verify things.

I keep an old GPU around for this reason, so that if I suspect that the GPU is the bad part, I can try to boot the rig with an old GPU to ensure that everything else is working. If it does, then I can safely assume my GPU was the problem.

Your GPU is probably not the culprit, and it's most likely the PSU. Now, when one of your fans went out, you should have either asked for a replacement on your warranty (most card companies have pretty good warranties these days, although I've never personally dealt with Sapphire) or just replaced the fan. Fans are usually cheap, and replacing them yourself is a screwdriver job, so you don't have to be an expert or anything. Sorry, not trying to give you a hard time about that, but in the future, that's my advice if you run into that problem again...it's one less thing to question as you move forward, and remember that heat is the #1 contributor to component death, so you always want to take advantage of all of the cooling that you can.

Hope that helps...

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I agree with everything you said except that the PSU wasn't running even close to it's full capacity. I can guarantee you, that you can run way more demanding cards with that PSU.

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yeah, good point, entirely possible. I didn't have a wattage meter hooked up to it, so I definitely don't know for sure. 😁 When you weren't gaming, browsing the web, etc., I'm certain that you weren't anywhere near capacity (probably ~250W-300W total). What would be interesting to see is what you pulling under load while gaming, because that can ratchet things up to 500W-550W pretty fast.

I'm running that big PSU partially because it aesthetically matched the rest of my gear (long story). But another part is that I want overhead space for going SLi, and also because my proc is the AMD 8350 Black series (Piledriver, or, as I call it, "the hotplate" - 95W @ idle, >200W when gaming), which, while being an awesomely affordable and powerful proc for its time for gaming, pulls lots of power and puts off tons of heat. So, big PSU, and good CPU cooler. :)

Keep in mind, too, that amperage matters as well, and sometimes you can run into amperage limit issues on smaller PSUs just based upon the number of devices you're running. That probably wasn't it, either, especially in a single-rail PSU, but it's something to look at.

In any case, I'd replace the PSU and probably invest in something a little bigger just for growth space whenever you decide to upgrade later on. 😎

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You extremely overestimate the power a PC draws from the wall. His build doesn't get to 500W under load, and I can 100% guarantee you that. There are manufacturers that create Small Form Factor pre-builds with top tier graphics cards and 450-500W PSUs.

You can even check a video of LinusTechTips, where he builds a PC with 2 CPUs and 7 GPUs. The wattage drawn straight from the wall, was in the neighborhood of 1700W.

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You extremely overestimate the power a PC draws from the wall.

Yup, I don't know why people tend to supersize their PSU so much. My laptop (which contains desktop parts i7-6700k + GTX 1060) runs very fine on a 330W PSU (and actually, I asked for the upgrade, the manufacturer planned to just ship it with a 230-ish W PSU, which I thought was a bit borderline ^^).
OP's config must be like CPU 90W and GPU 180W (no time to check those ancient components but the order of magnitude sounds about right). So less than 270W under load for the main parts, add 10W for MOBO, 10W for RAM, 10W for disks (again very approximate) => 300W in full load (PSU output, not wall). If scaling the PSU to top at 60% load, 500W PSU is nice.

That being said, even a non-overloaded PSU can break, shit happens ^^

7 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Actually, that depends upon a lot of things. Does he OC his CPU? Then that can, in fact, add quite a bit of wattage. I mean, you're probably right, and he probably doesn't get to 500W under load (not with an i5, unless it's OC'd). That 7950 could potentially have a wide draw range as well (again, depending upon which particular 7950 we're talking about...is it an OC model? Has he pushed it any? Both of those things add to the potential power draw).

It's also important to note that the wattage isn't describing what his "PC draws from the wall." The PSU receives power at a fairly consistent rate, and stores much of this in capacitors. Its rating is based upon what it can consistently deliver to the components, which are creating the draw from the PSU. "Big" PSUs have large capacitors that can store and deliver higher levels of power consistently (this is also why you should never mod a PSU unless you actually know what you're doing in there...hitting the wrong thing (i.e., a big capacitor) with a screwdriver when it isn't depleted can not merely shock you, but actually kill you).

@DingDong2 -- hey, I hear what you're saying, but you can't directly compare laptop and desktop components. You're right, a 330W PSU for a laptop is BIG. But, laptop components are specifically designed for lower power consumption based upon the need to be able to run off of a battery for a good period of time. It's why an i7 in a laptop and an i7 in a desktop are generally not very equivalent...yes, they're the same class of CPU, but the laptop version is usually designed to run at lower power consumption rates, and generally much lower speeds unless specifically called upon to perform at peak. So, the power draw is going to be very different, and you can't use laptop components to baseline what a desktop might ask of the PSU. There are exceptions, for sure, especially in gaming laptops, where the high-end gaming laptops overlap some mid-to-lower-tier gaming desktops in terms of average power consumption. But, if you compared a high-end gaming laptop to a high-end gaming desktop, it wouldn't even be close at peak draw.

Anyway, all of that aside, you guys are right, he's probably not drawing 500W, but he could with that component list (especially if you start factoring in northbridge/southbridge possibilities, in cases where you might want to OC the RAM). For example, when I rip bluray discs to my home server (so that I can just watch them on any device, like my XB1), and it's dedicated all eight cores @turbo speed, plus leveraging the cores on my GPU as well, and hitting the HDD hard, etc., etc...my draw goes up to around 650W. Now, part of that is because my CPU is relatively high wattage in the first place. But even so, I'm only at around 200W at idle. So, it's important to keep in mind that on desktops, peak and idle power consumption can be a very, very wide range.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 1 year ago.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

if nothing happens when u try to turn it on (no LEDs etc) then yes it's the power suply in most cases... same happend to friend last week... :/

if other stuff breaks you would still see the PC trying to start, blinking LEDs, error messages...

BUT you can't never be sure... ;)

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Try turning it on without videocard, with one RAM stick (then change it to another one), without all HDDs, et.c. It doesn't even start? Maybe powersupply is broken, try another one (ask a friend or get a cheap one, you don't need a lot of watts to start it). If it starts, then assemble it, one item at a time.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Unplug the PSU cord from the outlet. Press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds, then plug the cord back.
If that doesn't work, try removing one of your RAMs, or replacing them.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Do you ever was opening the computer to remove all the dust that's inside? If not, unplug everything from the power connection, wait 5 minutes, open it and clean it up. It's worth a try. If you're lucky you have the chance to make a backup of the important files.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Most of Corsair power supply's come with a 10 year warranty,i would just give them a call and tell them yours is dead if it turns out to be your PSU which it sounds like it is,they will ship you a new one free of charge but you will have to ship the old one to them i believe they will give you a pre payed label for that as well.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Do you see a LED light on the motherboard when the PC is plugged in? If you do, then there's power getting to the MB, and the problem may be treatable. If not, then it's most likely the PSU, less likely the MB.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well, I bought a new PSU and everything seems to be running, but my monitor, keyboard, and mouse won't work.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Actually nvm, it's fixed! I can't believe I didn't put the ram stick in properly. In the end, it was my PSU that had to be replaced.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

so the psu was the issue. good job.

7 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Sign in through Steam to add a comment.