My PC does not start.

[AnthoniusII]

Few days ago in my area there were storms and i ended windows and closed my PC from its power switch in its rear to protect it from electric power drops.
The next day i opened the rear power switch and pressed the front button to start the PC. Nothing. I tried 3-4 times.
Then i opened-closed the rear power switch 3-4 times and after that PC started!
In the following days this happened alot of times but in other days PC starts regulary.
PC is 10 years old.
I used windows commands to check disk , windows integrity, i sued two anti-varius programms to check for viruses, i used windows option to check on rams.
No problem detected.
I phoned in to 2 technicians .
The 1st said from the start that its the PSU
The 2nd started from simple wire connections and expanded to PSU and said that might need change of motherboward.
Since i am total noob and in my PC there is material (modding) that MUST not lost...
Any advice/opinion would be usefull.

[Ishan]

Because of a temporary brownout or a power surge your PSU or motherboard may have been damaged. Do you employ a UPS? It helps in protecting your PC from any sort of power issue.
In any case, your only option here is to get this checked in a PC repair shop. Where the hardware guy will try to boot the PC with a new PSU\SMPS and see whether it's MOBO or PSU related issue. Voltage fluctuations can damage any one of them really.

I think it's a good sign to upgrade your old PC now Anthony. Zeus demands it seems?

[AnthoniusII]

My friend my PC was the result of a DONATION within the Hellenic members here in TWC back then when Garb was the owner of the site.
Unforthunatly i have not the money to buy a new PC.
Also if motherboard is damaged and replaced i have no where to store my modding material and months of hard made work will be lost because the HD should be formated inorder to recognise the new PC materials.
One technician says that if was a motherboard issue the PC would not work at all. The fact that even after several times its starts and works properly gives him a clue that most likely (i hope) its a PSU issue.
In 2 days i will know. Maybe its a sign to leave modding. After all I failed to launch TGC mod so far as i promised to all of those that anonymus donated me money to buy this PC.

[Daruwind]

Quick test is to change PSU to different one and try it for a day or two. IF you PC is starting normally sometimes, without any error or BDOS, CMOS problems, then Motherboard is probably okay. Ten years is a long time for both components, especially for PSU it is +/- limit especially if you often turn PC on/off. You can try to let PC be on for long period of time. If there are any instability in PSU/Motherboard, system should crash from time to time even without any activity. If the system is stable that would also point into PSU especially switching from on to off.

Common rule is to have PSU at least two times stronger than the consumption of PC is so the PSU is operating in lower half of output. Basically stronger PSU will last longer with weaker consumption... Do you have any idea about that? CPU, GPU, HDDs, these are +/- only parts with power consumption.

Anyway , if the motherboard is damaged, you might be able to change it without need for reinstall. But I doubt you will be able to get 10 year old motherboard in good shape. Anyway, transfering your windows installation into newer setup is possible. It is for more experience people. But possible.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answer...g-windows.html
https://www.wintips.org/how-to-repla...lling-windows/

But i would definitely start with PSU. It is good chance that is only damaged part. :-) Good luck!

[AqD]

Was the PSU fan running when it failed to start? If not, the problem is clearly the PSU and you just need to replace it. Do you just turn off the power everyday!? That's bad for life expectancy.


@Daruwind: two times? But to achieve the optimal efficiency shouldn't it be around 110% or 120% something. I picked my new PSU based on that!

[Daruwind]

Fans are not indicative. I have 1000W PSU and its fan will not start until above 50% of load...But it is good idea. If they are usually running, then they should usually run

@AqD Let me ask you. What do you think is more stressful for PSU, running usually at 50% and having peaks of 90% or running on 25% and having peaks with 45-50% of load? If you will look into matter, you will see a lot of graphs about efficiency, output...basically more powerful PSU has more flatted out curves around 40-60% of load. You want to be there, not neccessary, but going to 90% or more of load is usually having reduction in efficiency and running on PSU limits... Weaker PSU has more bigger differencies in performance between iddle/full load or even different levels of your system load. (iddle vs full CPU, full CPU+GPU+HDDs...). More powerful source will not grant any better performance but putting aside failures (rate should be similar for weaker/stronger PSU) the weaker PSU are the ones more often getting burned off. Just for imagination, my iddle comsuption is under 100w while full load is around 600w.

My rule was always to stay with peak at about 60% of PSU....thus if I close eye, twice powerful PSU.

[z3n]

Wow a 1000W PSU? What kind of graphics card and CPU do you have?

750W is probably cheaper and more what you need. It sounds like you have a mostly barebones system anyway?

[AqD]

@Daruwind: I was wrong! Peak efficiency is 50% not higher. Anyway I bought 400W which is the smallest on market, with nvidia 1060 and no HDD it could never reach even half.

[Daruwind]

my PC is quite complex OC gtx1080ti, OC i7-7700K, two data raids with 10 HDDS (plus some raid controller cards), one system raid with double SSD..

Guidelines for gtx1080ti are around 600w PSU, with good CPU probably 650-750w, with OC...little more.

@AqD yep, usually it is 40-60%

[AnthoniusII]

Thank God it was the PSU.
I changed it with one 100W more power (my previus was 650W for GTX-660 2GB ,IntelCore 2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.33Ghz ,8 GB RAM). The technician said that the old PSU had several safe switches that prevended more harm to other PC componets.
He cleaned my motherboard and changed its "paste" because it was 10 years old -what ever that is- and also cleaned my GTX-660 and also changed its paste because it was 2 years old.
I hardly recognised my PC's interior when i saw it that clean. I ussualy clean it with a spray but motherboard never cleans well.
He also installed the latest drivers of almost all componets and upgraded BIOS to the last version for my PC.
The results will be shown in the following days.
Thank you all for your kind advices.

[z3n]

my PC is quite complex OC gtx1080ti, OC i7-7700K, two data raids with 10 HDDS (plus some raid controller cards), one system raid with double SSD..

Guidelines for gtx1080ti are around 600w PSU, with good CPU probably 650-750w, with OC...little more.

@AqD yep, usually it is 40-60%

Oh sorry, I somehow thought you were Anthonius somehow on my mobile phone. Lol, that makes complete sense that it's a different person.

I understand completely, I used to SLI two titans (so I had a 1200W PSU just in case, plus my 4 hdd's / 2 ssd's and CPU). Now I only have a single 1080ti, it's such a great card.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Hey Antony, just saw this. Sorry I have missed the party I hope everything is ok now.
Anyway you can message me on fb anytime, if you still need help or any Tech advice etc

Thank God it was the PSU.
I changed it with one 100W more power (my previus was 650W for GTX-660 2GB ,IntelCore 2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.33Ghz ,8 GB RAM). The technician said that the old PSU had several safe switches that prevended more harm to other PC componets.
He cleaned my motherboard and changed its "paste" because it was 10 years old -what ever that is- and also cleaned my GTX-660 and also changed its paste because it was 2 years old.
I hardly recognised my PC's interior when i saw it that clean. I ussualy clean it with a spray but motherboard never cleans well.
He also installed the latest drivers of almost all componets and upgraded BIOS to the last version for my PC.
The results will be shown in the following days.
Thank you all for your kind advices.

Never ever clean your pc with sprays of any kind. You'll probably do far more harm than you could imagine due to spray's humidity.
You just need an inexpensive blower. Around 20 euros or less.

. Now I only have a single 1080ti, it's such a great card.

You don't really need anything else, even for decent 4K setting. Though I never play on 4K (marketing crap) 1440p is the sweet spot for me

[Sir Adrian]

A bit late to the thread but if your computer does not start at all the cause is always the PSU. If it shows the initial BIOS screen and then dies without the beep it's the ram.

If you can get up to where windows is supposed to load and dies or enters a restart loop it's always the motherboard .

If Windows starts to load but fails it's your HDD or maybe a corrupt installation.



A very good way to test out a busted PSU is the paperclip test. Take a paperclip, unwind it and put one end in the 5V pin (orange or green) and one in the ground GND then plug it in. If the fan spins your PSU is ok. It's only 5V but you should still be careful about what you touch.

RAM can be tested using memtest. Do multiple tests. Test each stick in each slot separately and then in groups.

MOBO and HDD have to be taken to the shop, like Ishan said.

Fans are not indicative. I have 1000W PSU and its fan will not start until above 50% of load...But it is good idea. If they are usually running, then they should usually run

I highly doubt 95% of the user-base has a 1000 Watt PSU and generally 50% is peak load for a 1000W PSU. Unless you are running a computer cluster, multiple servers or a digital effects studio in your house you will never reach 500 Watt. Ever.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I highly doubt 95% of the user-base has a 1000 Watt PSU and generally 50% is peak load for a 1000W PSU. Unless you are running a computer cluster, multiple servers or a digital effects studio in your house you will never reach 500 Watt. Ever.

Yep, agreed. Most of the users I know just adding the extra Watt for psychological reasons