Patsy7z7

Greetings, lets get started.

This computer is very top notch but i'll tell show you things which are important to my issue. The motherboard is an Asus P5VD1-X and it uses an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. It has a very old power supply, and good, healthy RAM.

The issue here is: This computer has been working completely well. There were no issues whatsoever, except recently (and spontaneously) this: There is an issue, probably having to do with the power supply's habit of overheating. I do not know the cause, i assume age, but the hard drive runs incredibly hot (only on this comp, i have diagnosed on another comp and it runs fine) and the power supply is near scalding. Recently, the computer has been failing to boot. The small green LED on the motherboard is lit, and all the fans spin, including the processor fan, when the power button is pressed. However, nothing else occurs. No sounds are made from the beep/fart, no output to the monitor, and no power/signals to the CD and floppy drives. The processor runs cold, and all heat sinks are cool as well. The computer continues to sit on its standby mode, not initializing any form of BIOS.

On another note, the HDD has failed to work. Diagnostics show that it has been damaged irrepairably. I assume the overheating has effectively killed it. Oh well, i guess crap happens.

I have already done much diagnostic on this machine. Things including removing RAM and booting, checking the CPU, etc. However, if you feel it is nessissary to recheck then feel free to tell me. I need ideas to REPAIR the problem, not REPLACE. I do not have the time nor resources to replace the power supply, so that is out of the question.

I would like this to be a speedy repair, but this seems to be a hardware issue, and not anything easily fixed. Please keep in mind that this computer was working exceptionally one minute, and in literally the next all the failures occured.

Rashiki

What are the other components in the system and what model and wattage is the power supply?

For overheating, what case is all this in and do you have at least one intake and one exhaust fan?

Have you tried to reset the CMOS via the onboard jumper and/or removing the 3v lithium battery from the motherboard for at least 20 minutes?

My guess is the old and overheating PSU sent some bad juice to your board. Dirty power kills components with reckless abandon.

Patsy7z7

The model of the power supply is an Okia LC-8460BTX, Its got a max output of 450W.

The case is an old, generic one. It has no fans, but when we first received it (a friend gave it to us to check on) it had overheated, killing the first HDD he had. We looked in it, told him that the lack of fans will destroy more things through heat, and we have left the case open even since (don't worry, we have been removing dust).

I know nothing of those jumpers, and i do not have a manual to tell me which ones to switch. I assume I'll have to go look that up, so i don't switch the wrong one.

The battery? I'm certain that is not the issue, but when i have time I'll take it out and see what happens. (REALLY busy right now, wrestling tournaments left and right)

The PSU may have killed the Motherboard, but I'm willing to attempt anything to save it.

Oh, and with the other components, do you only want to know the ones which may affect the boot sequence?

Rashiki

Every component in the computer would help, see how bad you're taking that outdated PSU.

If your case is open, you should see the battery straight away. If you unplug the power supply from the wall, and remove that battery for a few minutes, it will reset the BIOS. It's a long shot that it'll help, but it only takes a few minutes and should be tried.

Done_Fishin

P5VD1-X

Basic Info for this board:


Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 CPU
Dual-Core CPU
VIA PT880 Ultra
Dual-Channel DDR 400/333
PCI Express & AGP8X combo solution
SATA with RAID 0, 1, JBOD

Without doing the calculations and not knowing the type or quality of your existing PSU, I would say that it's way under rated.
When you checked out the PSU on another computer, did you note whether it had the same specs as your PC? If it was just a swap it & see then it'spossible that the other Pc wasn't a power eater like tis one appears tobe.
What graphics card do you have ? What else is on board?
I would suggset that you check out the true power requirement of your mobo & additional components but I doubt if anything other than a GOOD QUALITY SUPPLY of at least 550W will suffice.
Check out this "sticky"
http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...selection.html

Patsy7z7

The graphics chip is a GeForce 6200 256mb DDR2. It connects through AGP. Its currently out right now, because it sits conveniently above the battery, which is currently taken out. I took it out once before, but it did not change anythng. I'm taking it out again, and for longer.

I havent checked the PSU anywhere else, but as i've said before, it is probably responsible. I'm going to try and convince my friend to buy a new case altogether, because this one dosent even have any fan ports, let alone holes for ventilation.

As for things connected to the motherboard, theres a couple. Firstly, theres that GPU, and a Diamond Xtreme Sound card. There are 2 optical drives. A Hewlett Packard CD Writer Plus!, and a standard DVD drive. They really shouldent be an issue.

A modem and a wireless card are also connected. They have no history of problem, and they are probably not responsible. On the board are 2 sticks of RAM. They too, are in good condition and have not had any issues. I also took them out to see if i needed to dump their data, as i said before.

Other than the beep/fart speaker, and all the componets already on the board, theres nothing.

Thanks for your help, but yu pretty much just confirmed my suspicion of a dead mobo.

Done_Fishin

I would suggest that before you condemn the mobo completely you try a good quality PSU. It could be that the PSU is clouding the correct analysis of your board.

Since though your opening statement contained this statement

and states categorically "I can't / won't change the PSU".

I can only imagine that you will probably get another case that has an equally cheap power supply with inadequate heatsinks, capacitors and chokes.
I would strongly suggest that you take the power supply problem into serious consideration and not take anything that "meets your financial crisis"! Better wait and get something good or you might well end up paying more than you bargain for in the long run.

If you do buy a cheapie, I imagine we will be seeing you again with another message like this one asking for help when something else gets burnt. You already lost a drive and possibly the mobo, who knows what will go next?

expensive hobby

Patsy7z7

Good news! Now i DO have the time and resources! Or rather, the guy who gave me the comp does. He is going to get himself something with more power. I suggested 550W, but should he go for more? I'd like a very quick response, because a stroke of luck is allowing him to get a new one.

Yea, very expensive hobby. But now i'll be able to diag this mobo a little better.

I also got this question: The PSU dosent have enough power, right? Since it isint pumping ENOUGH juice to the system, why would they run too hot? I would understand that if the wattage was much greater then the componets would run hot, but too little? The main reason i ask is because the HDD also ran hot on this machine, would that be due to not enough power? Too much? I know that it wasent getting heat from other componets, because we had it out of the case, away from other things, and it was still very hot. Tell me your thoughts.

Patsy7z7

I read that sticky--VERY helpful. Answered my questions about overheating, so dont boher explaining them to me.

And on another note, why isint there an edit button? It was there earlier.... I'd like to have just changed my old post.

Done_Fishin

know anything about cars ?
Imagine you have a car that is capable of doing 100mph and you are trying to do 110mph .. then trying 120mph .. really pushing the engine to the maximum ..
thats the analogy of the power supply on the computer.
Just like the Car , the engine will eventually self destruct due to being pushed beyond the limits. Also though, most of the components will be totally stressed because they were never designed to run at that speed either. In the case of the PSU, the ELECTRICAL noise in form of high voltage spikes that haven't been filtered will constantly pound the components, like a hammer gently tapping away at a piece of metal until the metal cracks under fatigue. This constant beating with spikes causes the devices to overheat, eventually going into self destruction. I remember even now the Chemistry experiment back in the 60's where the Science Master connected a light bulb in series with a glass rod and fed mains Voltage across it. He then heated the glass rod , and as it got hot so the lightbulb started to glow. Electronic components are made from the same substance as glass rods!

When the PSU is running at less than full power it "cruises" so no strain , no pain. either on the PSU or the mobo.
The ability to deliver power is not the same as power being delivered. Power being delivered should equal the power being consumed. The power being consumed should be well within the tolerances of the supply. Never go 100%, you never know what stresses you are putting on the source or the load!
Hope that helps to clarify and if it doesn't I am only too willing to clarify until I have made myself perfectly clear.

Patsy7z7

Thanks for explaining that a little better. I work with small electronics (robotics) and a lack of power isint such an overheat problem with them.

Got a new power supply. Its good quality, and has good ventilation. Its got 550W, and i dont think it will cause any more overheats.

However, the motherboard still isint working. Its just like before, and i've ran all the diagnostics like i did before. My plan is that we will warranty the board, and the new PSU will no longer kill the system componets.

Any more ideas will be appreciated, and i thank you for the time spent so far.

Done_Fishin

First .. the edit thing .. THere's a 30 minute restriction on editing a post and I assume like other forums that it also depends upon whether your edit is in time before another posting is made ..

Second , I can't think of anything else to say , I realise that you're not exactly "green" and that you've done a good job of diagnosis on that that PC. Whatever comments I have made so far have been in order to ensure that you didn't waste hard earnt cash on items that might NOT need replacing and ensure that you don't end up asking for help again due to a repeat performance of a problem that didn't get highlighted.
You should already have a very good idea now from previous tests what is good and what is faulty from that mobo. Be prepared though that some faults don't show up immediately, they show up when least expecting it. Most of the components will have been stressed by the PSU.
If you have done any research about component reliability, you may well have heard about the "bathtub effect" relating to life of components.
The bathtub when looked at as cross section has a steep side and a less steep side with gentle slope connecting them. The lifetime of components is said to be something similar when looked at in graph form. Initially a lot of components will fail during manufacturing processes & conformity testing. The "good components will then reach OEM's where some will fail during warranty periods but overall there will be only a few failures during the component lifetime. As the "lifetime" approaches an end there will be a gradual increase in quantities of failures which will signify that the components have finished their usefuil lifespan.

Component failures ... an idea of failure over years of use.

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mfr ........lifecycle ........ end of life

When devices have been overworked, damaged by voltage spikes, attacked by static disharge ... it is very difficult to pinpoint at what point thay will fail. Certainly their lifecycle will be impaired and they will not see out their expected lifetime. Sometimes there is a gradual degradation of teh device characteristic like a resistor whose value slowly changes with time, at other times the change is abrupt as a weakened link suddenly decides to either stop functioning or short out. Hence the "it was working fine until I switched off last night" syndrome. Since you are working in the electronics field you must be aware of these things, if only applied to individual components rather than a complete electronic unit.

Good luck with the rest of the repair and if you have any more questions please do come and ask. We're always ready to answer queries and if I don't know the answer or am unavailable , there are a lot of good techs on the forum just waiting to jump in and give a hand