Is the PSU dead?

[Lairlair]

Hi all!

 

So I've tinkered with a SFF acer veriton and until a few days ago it was working perfectly. Today I tried to fire it up and it doesn't boot. The CPU fan spins for a second, the power LED lights up at the front, the drive LED too and then it shuts down automatically. I've never seen symptoms like that. Does it mean that the PSU is dead?

 

Thank you for any input or hints towards troubleshooting

[johnt]

What do you mean you tinkered with it? Tinkering with a PSU is a sin in these forums.

[Lairlair]

2 minutes ago, johnt said:

What do you mean you tinkered with it? Tinkering with a PSU is a sin in these forums.

I've reapplied thermal paste, cleaned some dust, updated the bios, reinstalled windows and added a SATA Y splitter power cable so I could connect an extra drive (as suggested in another thread of this forum). I didn't open the PSU or anything, and it was behaving perfectly fine last time I used it.

[johnt]

4 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

I've reapplied thermal paste, cleaned some dust, updated the bios, reinstalled windows and added a SATA Y splitter power cable so I could connect an extra drive (as suggested in another thread of this forum). I didn't open the PSU or anything, and it was behaving perfectly fine last time I used it.

Sorry I think I misread your original post. I don’t think a Y-splitter works for SATA. The protocol only recognizes one drive per wire so I am not sure how that is functioning.

 

This is really difficult to diagnose. Since your device is technically starting and a fan is spinning, I don’t think we can point directly to the PSU just yet. Have you tried removing your memory sticks and installing one stick at a time to see if that fixes it?

 

Are there any debug LEDs on your motherboard somewhere that can help?

[leclod]

Check all plugs, reseat gpu and RAM. You did something wrong which can probably be done right.

What did you do after installing Windows ?

Edited September 14, 2023 by leclod

[Lairlair]

30 minutes ago, johnt said:

Are there any debug LEDs on your motherboard somewhere that can help?

There's only a little beeper that doesn't have time to chime so not very helpful

 

21 minutes ago, leclod said:

Check all plugs, reseat gpu and RAM.

I've done all that, stripped the PC to its bare minimum and still no POST. This PC only uses the iGPU of the intel core i3-4130.

Worst case scenario would be that the motherboard is dead

 

27 minutes ago, leclod said:

What did you do after installing Windows ?

I installed the drivers, updated the BIOS, rebooted it a few times, played a few videos on youtube to see if it did that smoothly

[leclod]

2 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

I installed the drivers, updated the BIOS, rebooted it a few times, played a few videos on youtube to see if it did that smoothly

You could have a go without that Y splitter

Are you at stock settings ? or did you try to reset the bios ?

Edited September 14, 2023 by leclod

[Lairlair]

3 minutes ago, leclod said:

You could have a go without that Y splitter

Yeah it's disconnected. Even with just RAM and CPU connected the PC doesn't stay on long enough to go to BIOS.

 

4 minutes ago, leclod said:

Are you at stock settings ? or did you try to reset the bios ?

I'm using stock settings yeah

 

Oh and a strange thing that happens is whenever I remove the power plug and then plug it back in, the fan spins for a second (just like when I press the power button)

[leclod]

Sorry I missed the "and until a few days ago it was working perfectly"

You could have destroyed the cpu instead of the mb too, maybe it got too hot for whatever reason ?

It'd be nice to try stuff out on/from other systems

Edited September 14, 2023 by leclod

[Lairlair]

Well I've ordered a PSU, let's see if it fixes it. If not I'll try CPU, if not... well. We'll see.

[Robchil]

5 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Well I've ordered a PSU, let's see if it fixes it. If not I'll try CPU, if not... well. We'll see.

i would inspect the cpu and ram sockets for bent pins. 

check that power plugs don't have pins pushed out.. 

you say it's stripped, did you take it out of the case and test just PSU mainboard CPU ram? 

 

start it with a screw driver shorting the two power pins, see mainboard manual for what 2.. but usually it's the bottom right of mainboard. and pin 3 and 4 from left top row. 

 

[Lairlair]

On 9/15/2023 at 2:53 PM, Robchil said:

did you take it out of the case and test just PSU mainboard CPU ram?

Yeah I've tried that. After inspection there's no bent pins that I can see. I've tried with another PSU as well but the same thing happens...

 

I've also tried shorting the power pins and the same thing happens so it rules out the power button

 

So I guess the problem lies in the motherboard, maybe a capacitor got damaged somehow... I don't know that I have the patience to find schematics and look for the issue though

[Robchil]

7 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Yeah I've tried that. After inspection there's no bent pins that I can see. I've tried with another PSU as well but the same thing happens...

 

I've also tried shorting the power pins and the same thing happens so it rules out the power button

 

So I guess the problem lies in the motherboard, maybe a capacitor got damaged somehow... I don't know that I have the patience to find schematics and look for the issue though

ouch.. well you could inspect it under a magnifying glass to see if you find something that seems odd.. but they are hard to spot unless you are trained 

 

did you try with just one ram stick .. if it didn't work try the other?.. 

that's an old system btw.. 4 gen.. from 2013ish? ..  think i got a 3rd gen in 2012..  

 

alot can happen in 10 years.. and sometimes they just wait for someone to change or do something with it to break..  hence.. never touch a running system.. 

 

 

[atarione]

Out of curiosity have you tried actually removing the cmos battery (short connector with small flat screw driver) then reinstall cmos battery??

 

or power off / unplug and move cmos jumper to reset position then put it back to standard and reconnect power and try again?   Alternately if it is that old have you tried replacing the CMOS battery with a new battery?   

 

 

[Lairlair]

19 hours ago, atarione said:

Out of curiosity have you tried actually removing the cmos battery (short connector with small flat screw driver) then reinstall cmos battery??

 

or power off / unplug and move cmos jumper to reset position then put it back to standard and reconnect power and try again?   Alternately if it is that old have you tried replacing the CMOS battery with a new battery?   

 

 

I did but it didn't help sadly. The battery still delivers 3V so there's that

 

21 hours ago, Robchil said:

did you try with just one ram stick .. if it didn't work try the other?

I've tried yes.

 

I guess I'll see if I can find a mini itx replacement motherboard with 1150 socket. Or the same model.