1. #1
    Herald of the Titans Tikaru's Avatar
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    WTF Just Happened?!

    Alright, so to give you a little back-story: last week I purchased a new Radeon HD 5870. I replace my old Radeon HD 4650, and right away I'm impressed with how amazing RIFT looks on ultra settings. However, I notice that after a few hours, the fans in my case sound like they're fighting off Satan's army. I close all programs, and after 10-ish minutes, the fans go back to their normal hums.

    I do a little poking around, and find that the issue seems to be two things:

    (1) My current PSU is a 600W Rosewill PSU. I figure that the poor thing is just under too much of a workload with my setup.

    (2) My cables were in such a mess than airflow must suck in my case.



    Fast forward to today:

    I plan on purchasing a Corsair HX 1000W PSU next month, since my funds are a little low right now. It's either buy food or buy the PSU, and my stomach won. Anyways, I picked up two more 120mm fans that I intended to put at the top of the case as exhaust fans. That brings my computer to three intake and three exhaust fans.

    Next, I take out the new powerful GPU and put the old one back in, since it's not nearly the power-hog. Finally, I rearrange all the cables inside the case to help improve airflow.

    Once everything is all finished and connected, I take my computer back into the office, plug everything in, and....nothing happens.

    No power.

    WTF?

    I look down and see that my UPS is powered off, which is odd since it was working this morning just fine. Whatever, I turn it on, and I'm greeted with a red flashing light and an annoying buzzer from my UPS. Normally, this sound happens when the power goes off and I'm running off the UPS back-up battery. Please note, that NOTHING is plugged into the UPS right now, I'm just testing it.

    To me, it sounds like my UPS somehow kicked the bucket. To be fair, I can't be too upset, since I've owned it for almost 5 years now.


    Fine, whatever, my UPS is probably dead. It's technology, and sometimes it fails. So, I connect my computer directly to the wall outlet, and.....nothing. Again.

    WTF?

    It worked just fine before I powered everything off and disconnected everything. I made sure everything was connected again, so that's not it.

    I'm stumped. And pissed, very, very pissed.

  2. #2
    Wild guess: something shorted when you changed the graphics card, added the fans and rearranged cables, and you fried the PSU. Possibly more than just the PSU if unlucky.

    If you're lottery winner lucky, the PSU refuses to start because of the short, and it will recover once you fix the connections.

    edit:

    I have once managed to short a PSU when I plugged in floppy drive power cable wrong way around (didnt even need excess force, shit connector allowed putting it wrong). PSU made loud *pop* when I tried to start computer, and it died... Didt start after minute, or 30 minutes... But after 2h it booted again, and worked afterwards for more than year.
    Last edited by vesseblah; 2011-03-06 at 08:44 PM.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
    Trolling should be.

  3. #3
    This is an absolutely random guess, and almost certainly isn't it, but it was the solution when I had a similar problem a few years ago: did you accidentally move the voltage switch on the back of the PSU while you were working on the computer?

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans Tikaru's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tartilus View Post
    This is an absolutely random guess, and almost certainly isn't it, but it was the solution when I had a similar problem a few years ago: did you accidentally move the voltage switch on the back of the PSU while you were working on the computer?
    Nope, it's still set to 115V.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Tikaru View Post
    To me, it sounds like my UPS somehow kicked the bucket. To be fair, I can't be too upset, since I've owned it for almost 5 years now.

    Fine, whatever, my UPS is probably dead. It's technology, and sometimes it fails. So, I connect my computer directly to the wall outlet, and.....nothing. Again.

    WTF?

    It worked just fine before I powered everything off and disconnected everything. I made sure everything was connected again, so that's not it.

    I'm stumped. And pissed, very, very pissed.
    You're likely right about the UPS being dead, the batteries do tend to fail in them eventually.

    If you were taking out/putting in cards, you might want to re-seat the cards and double check the power cable from your PSU to your MB.

    If that doesn't work, I'd also suggest pulling the MB out of the case and trying to start up that way, if the board is shorting against the case it can prevent powering up. It's quite possible something was just jostled slightly while you were removing or inserting the cards.

    If the power cable to the MB is properly secured and you know the MB isn't shorting against the case, and it still won't power up....try swapping your RAM sticks out. I've had faulty RAM do something similar, and it's possible the RAM sticks or the RAM slots were damaged during the process. Just try 1 stick at a time and then repeat in a different slot.

    Edit: If ALL of that doesn't make let you power up, then my bet would be the MB is fried, or, like posted above, your PSU is fried. At that point it would probably be worth having it tested.
    Last edited by Skitter; 2011-03-06 at 09:09 PM.

  6. #6
    Herald of the Titans Tikaru's Avatar
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    I've taken everything apart, again, and I can't see anything wrong.

    Since I was going to buy the new Corsair PSU next month anyways, I Fiancée went ahead and purchased it for me as a gift.

    I'm assuming that the PSU has to be the problem, since nothing else seems to be the cause of the issue. The fact that my computer no longer powers up and my UPS is now dead in the same day is just too much of a coincidence to me. Now, that does scare the crap out of me. If my PSU and UPS is dead, then what else could have died? FML...

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