I'm having some problems with my computer.
250 Watt PSU, 18" tower, Gigabyte GA-5AX (Rev 5; ALi Alladin V chipset), AMD K6-2 500 MHz, standard CPU fan, 128 MB PC100 RAM, and various other cards and drives.
The other day when I walked into the room, the system was turned off. I thought it was odd and immediately assumed I had tripped a fuse (I live in quite an old apartment building... and using the microwave and the kettle in the kitchen at the same time causes the fuse to trip instantly). That wasn't the case, however. I tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. So I flicked off and on the master power switch on the back of the PSU. I turned the system on again and it started to boot. It made it past POST but it powered down very shortly after.
I opened the case and I've cleaned the CPU fan. I've tried another power supply, another CPU (AMD K6-2 350 MHz) and a different CPU fan.
Right now I'm not getting too fare. The system powers down in less than 5 seconds of powering on. Earlier yesterday (after the ... problem was discovered) I was able to get into the BIOS (it's Award, btw) but there wasn't enough time to actually do anything. If I didn't go into the BIOS it would detect everything correctly, test the RAM ... etc, and then power itself off before it could get anywhere.
First I assumed the PSU was going wacky. As I said, I've tried a different one (a 300 Watt), with the same success. So I thought it might be the motherboard detecting the fan not spinning properly (which is odd, because I'm quite sure my mobo and/or fan doesn't monitor fan RPM), so I replaced that -- again with no success. I even replaced the CPU.
I took out the RAM (it's a single PC100 DIMM) and it started up, did the standard set of beeps to indicate there's no RAM, then quickly powered down as usual.
The only other observation I have is that after I walked into the room initially after I discovered it, there was a faint trace of that weird just-fried-electronic-equipment smell. I've looked over everything, and nothing seems to be shorted... and the motherboard certainly seems to be doing fine (.. I mean, when I turn it on, all the other hardware powers up too, and the BIOS is working ...). I thought the smell was coming from inside the PSU, but as I said, I've tried a different one with no success. I haven't taken out the mobo to inspect the back of it, but the top looks fine.
I'm starting to go crazy ... I'm out of ideas and I don't know what's going on! :frown:
Any ideas?
Thanks so much in advance!
Brett
250 Watt PSU, 18" tower, Gigabyte GA-5AX (Rev 5; ALi Alladin V chipset), AMD K6-2 500 MHz, standard CPU fan, 128 MB PC100 RAM, and various other cards and drives.
The other day when I walked into the room, the system was turned off. I thought it was odd and immediately assumed I had tripped a fuse (I live in quite an old apartment building... and using the microwave and the kettle in the kitchen at the same time causes the fuse to trip instantly). That wasn't the case, however. I tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. So I flicked off and on the master power switch on the back of the PSU. I turned the system on again and it started to boot. It made it past POST but it powered down very shortly after.
I opened the case and I've cleaned the CPU fan. I've tried another power supply, another CPU (AMD K6-2 350 MHz) and a different CPU fan.
Right now I'm not getting too fare. The system powers down in less than 5 seconds of powering on. Earlier yesterday (after the ... problem was discovered) I was able to get into the BIOS (it's Award, btw) but there wasn't enough time to actually do anything. If I didn't go into the BIOS it would detect everything correctly, test the RAM ... etc, and then power itself off before it could get anywhere.
First I assumed the PSU was going wacky. As I said, I've tried a different one (a 300 Watt), with the same success. So I thought it might be the motherboard detecting the fan not spinning properly (which is odd, because I'm quite sure my mobo and/or fan doesn't monitor fan RPM), so I replaced that -- again with no success. I even replaced the CPU.
I took out the RAM (it's a single PC100 DIMM) and it started up, did the standard set of beeps to indicate there's no RAM, then quickly powered down as usual.
The only other observation I have is that after I walked into the room initially after I discovered it, there was a faint trace of that weird just-fried-electronic-equipment smell. I've looked over everything, and nothing seems to be shorted... and the motherboard certainly seems to be doing fine (.. I mean, when I turn it on, all the other hardware powers up too, and the BIOS is working ...). I thought the smell was coming from inside the PSU, but as I said, I've tried a different one with no success. I haven't taken out the mobo to inspect the back of it, but the top looks fine.
I'm starting to go crazy ... I'm out of ideas and I don't know what's going on! :frown:
Any ideas?
Thanks so much in advance!
Brett