be4con

When I was testing the PSU by hotwiring it I was turning it off at the switch and removing the power cable every time that I removed or replaced the hotwire wire or replaced/removed it from the motherboard. Each time I retested it therefore it had had the cable removed and the power switch turned off/on.

I'll try the 230W PSU tomorrow when I'm back at home and report the results, thanks.

mattlock

The PSU from a Pentium 2 system will not work on your P4 system. Something that old would not be equipped with 4pin ATX 12v connector need to power the CPU of a P4 system. I don't think it would be strong enough to start the system anyway.

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Matt

a2amali

Good point, should have thought of that.. the M/B wont work without the 4pin connector.

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be4con

Thanks everyone for your continued support.

OK, I have removed everything from the motherboard apart from 2 sticks of RAM (I don't know which of the RAM slots I can use as a single with this board and not sure how I would find out easily) including the video card. Still getting the same response from the PSU - just a small click when I turn on and the slightest movement from the fan then nothing.

Any ideas where to go next?

a2amali

I would suggest that you get a new powersupply

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be4con

Ordered!

I went for the Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU in the end, I though it might be good to have fewer leads cluttering up the case to improve air flow.

Fingers crossed that the rest of the components withstood the PSU dying. I'll report back when it arrives.

Thanks for everyone's help. This is the 2nd time in recent years that this forum has been an absolute wealth of advice and information for me saving me time, heartache and above all cash!. I'm indebted to you.

mattlock

The Corsair HX series are some of the best on the market. You won't regret the purchase.

Keep us posted on your progress.

BTW, thanks for the Kudos. That is our biggest and only reward, for the time that we freely give to TSF.

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be4con

Bad news

I came back from my holiday to the delivery of my shiny new Corsair. It's a fantastic looking piece of hardware.

Anyway connected it up, hit the power switch and got exactly the same response as I had with my old PSU. That is a slight click, the faintest of nudges from the fan then nothing. So far I have only tried it with just the drives disconnected from the mobo (ie the graphics, sound and memory etc still connected) but as the result is exactly the same as before I'm not anticipating any different response when I test it with the mobo stripped down to just 2 sticks of RAM.

I will try it later and report back but in the meantime if you can suggest where I might go next that would be a great help. I guess it's sounding more likely that my mobo or CPU are fried though.

CoOkie

Have you tried looking at the cpu? Strip it from your mobo, remove the old thermal paste residue and re-apply some new paste. I've experienced something similar with the heatsink not properly being in contact with the cpu, so when I go to boot I get nothing.
The fact that it's powering your dvd drive and not your mobo I would lean towards your cpu or a faulty mobo.

be4con

What exactly am I looking for with the CPU? Is it likely to be physically obvious if it is damaged?

I'll need to get some thermal paste before I can do this.

Some investigation into this pc online suggests that there may have been problems with the way the heat sink and fan was attached to the CPU, which might lead to overheating in some cases. Certainly it was quite noisy with the fan working fairly hard a lot of the time. Maybe this would hint that the CPU could have been damaged. If you can let me know what I might be looking for when I examine the CPU that would be great.

If it is the CPU it looks like I might need to spend upwards of £175 to replace it, in which case I might cut my losses and consider a new system. I'm thinking maybe of building my own this time round though...

mattlock

What socket is your system based on, 478 or 775? With either socket type, you can get a replacement in the UK for under £50 including VAT.

http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Processors...900-Series-775
http://www.ebuyer.com/cat/Processors...-4-(Socket-478)

That said, the CPU is usually pretty tough, and would kind of warn that it's overheating. Were you having any issues before died, such as random reboots, BSODs, slowdown?

If you pull the CPU you are looking for any discoloration or burnt area. While you're at is look over the motherboard for the same thing. Also look over all the capacitors on the motherboard for any signs of bulging or leaking.

When a PSU dies it can take out any number of other components with it, but the motherboard or RAM is the usual victims.

BTW, while you're looking around inside the PC see if you can find the motherboard model number and post that info here.

Thanks,

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be4con

Thanks Matt

I must admit I just Googled for P4 3.4GHz processors and came up with the £175 price tag from there. It's reassuring to hear that a replacement would be a lot cheaper. I don't know what socket type I have, how can I find out?

There were no warning signs of impending failure. No reboots or BSOD, but I did have to reboot after a system lockup a few days before the failure. I had just installed some software though so it may have just been that. The only thing I had noticed was that the fans were running a lot more recently, to the point that I had decided to invest in a silencer kit.

I've checked the processor and grossly it looks fine, there are no blackened areas. It looks essentially healthy.

The motherboard also looks fine, there are no obvious areas of damage and the capacitors all look fine to my untrained eye: not bulging, leaking or blackened.

The motherboard is an MS-7091 Ver:10.

Any tips for cleaning off the old thermal paste before replacing the heatsink and fan?

Thanks

CoOkie

So how long after you fitted your silencer kit did it go? When you installed the new silencer kit, did it involve taking off the old heatsink? If so did you clean the cpu before fitting the new heatsink...? (I'm presuming the kit included a heatsink and fan) You said that you noticed the fans were more active, this could indicate that heat was an issue.
I use TIM fluid (Akasa) to clean the old paste residue off the cpu and heatsink.
Funnily enough I serviced my friend's pc today which involved cleaning the cpu and heatsink and when I put it all back together and went to switch on, I got nothing. I opened it up again and found that I'd actually put the heatsink the wrong way round; so I corrected it and it booted up straight away.

mattlock

Your motherboard is a socket 775 board with an Intel 915P chipset. It supports pretty much any 90nm, 800mhz FSB, P4. The only one available at Ebuyer for your board is the P4 541 3.2ghz (your current CPU is a P4 550 3.4ghz)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142970

I would still lean more toward the motherboard than the CPU. The CPU has a thermal trip point at which it will just shutdown.

You should see if you can test the CPU in friends system prior to buying a replacement CPU, or have it tested at a repair shop.

As for cleaning the TIM off the CPU and heatsink, rubbing alcohol works pretty well if you don't want to buy something like the cleaning solution mentioned above.

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be4con

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I hadn't fitted a silencer kit. I had just made the decision to invest in one in the past couple of weeks.

I guess the thing to do here is to get the processor tested and then maybe also the motherboard. I don't know of any friends with similar PCs and certainly not any that would be happy for me to start dismantling them. I hadn't wanted to resort to a repair shop but I guess I don't really have much choice at this point.

Any suggestions as to compatible boards if I need to replace the board? I can't find this exact board anywhere. An upgraded board would be ideal I guess, that's still compatible with the rest of my components.

Thanks once more for all your patient help.

mattlock

It's probably a little late in the game to be asking this, but how old is your PC? Did you buy it from Aldi? If so, it came with a 3yr warranty and might still be under warranty.

http://www.medion.co.uk/flash/md8383/frameset.html

If not, before I recommend a board I need to know if your case is capable of taking a ATX form factor motherboard (you current board is micro ATX). Can you take a couple of pictures of your tower? A side view with cover removed and a rear view would do nicely.

Most of you hardware will work on a newer board, you'll likely need to upgrade your RAM. Your current setup is running DDR and newer boards require DDR2. Other than that, your remaining hardware will be reusable.

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be4con

Yep, it came from Aldi but unfortunately it's about 3 1/2 years old now, I bought it in Nov 2004. I would almost certainly have invalidated any warranty by now anyway as I've completely dismantled it :)

I took the proces