(no subject)

[nmg]

The fan on our main PC has been misbehaving for the past couple of months (buzzing intermittently), which is a fairly good indication that the bearing has been going. The bearing seized completely within the past few days, but I'm not exactly sure when it happened.

So, time to replace things. The last time this happened (over a decade ago, on my machine of that time), I replaced the fan, which seemed to do the trick. This time around it looked a little more tricky; I'd have to unsolder the old fan from a very crowded circuitboard in the PSU. Discretion being the better part of valour, I decided that the easiest option would be to just buy a new power supply, and get one that was a bit quieter than that on the old machine.

So, hippety-hop to Maplins, and back again with a new PSU. Removed the old one and fitted the new one, being careful to ground myself before doing so. New PSU is indeed quiet, and pulls air through in a way that the old PSU no longer did...and the machine as a whole is dead. Doesn't boot, doesn't even get as far as the BIOS prompt. Looks very much as though, despite my precautions, I've just killed it.

And this is why I'm a computer scientist, and not a computer engineer.

Comments

[kentonuk.livejournal.com]

Yeurgh.

It's still possible you have killed something less vital (or that it coincidentally died by being moved about rather than getting static zapped).

I'll assume you have already checked that all expansion cards are properly seated and that both ends of all data cables are still firmly in etc. So the next step is to take them all out! Remove any expansion cards apart from the graphics one, remove all data cables from the MoBo end and unplug the power from all drives, and remove any external connections except keyboard and then see what happens. Dead CDs etc are surprisingly good at making machines look dead until you unplug them, been there, spent days diagnosing that.

If that doesn't work, you could even try taking all the RAM and the graphics card (assuming it is a card) out and see if you at least get a beep code.

HTH.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I'd already checked that the cards were correctly seated and the cables were connected.

I've now removed all but the graphics card and all the data cables (etc), and I've got the same result as before.

Haven't yet removed the RAM and graphics card, but am not hopeful.

What makes this more awkward is that I've not been able to get hold of the manual for the motherboard; it's an OEM motherboard made by Gigabyte for Fujitsu-Siemens. FS give an incredibly short datasheet for it that doesn't include any useful information about diagnostics such as beep codes, and Gigabyte denies ever having made such a motherboard.

[kentonuk.livejournal.com]

Is the BIOS by Gigabyte? If not you might be able to find the beep codes at somewhere like BIOS-Central if you can see the screen long enough to check whose it is.

But yes, I am purveying straws here.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I think that the BIOS manufacturer is written on the top of the BIOS ROM (off the top of my head, I think that it might be Phoenix).

[marklesuk.livejournal.com]

Is there an additional 4 pin power connector on the MB that you missed connecting up ?

Mark

[nmg.livejournal.com]

No, that's connected as well.

It's worth pointing out that the system no longer works with the *old* PSU connected (which was previously working fine, bar the issue with the fan).