ScoobyDan

Hi All,

I installed a DVD burner into my PC last night. I rebooted, and Windows found the new drive and installed the necessary drivers. I left the PC for about ten minutes, and when I came back it had switched itself off! No fans, no nothing

I have tried rebooting numerous times, but it just won't start. I have disconnected the new drive, incase that was causing the problem, but it hasn't cured it. The green LED on the motherboard lights up, showing there is power to the board, but when I hit the power switch nothing happens - not even the PSU fan spins.

My brother (who I got the drive from ) suggested that the motherboard has a 'safety device' that locks the PC if there is unsufficient power, and won't allow it to reboot until you reset the BIOS. I have tried this (left battery out overnight), but still no joy.

Any ideas? Could I have blown something on the board when I installed the drive, or is the PSU not powerfull enough?

Here's the spec:

350W PSU (about a year old, so could be on it's way out)
AMD Athlon 1800XP
ASUS m/board (not sure which one as I'm at work now)
512Mb DDR RAM
2x HD - 60MB & 30MB
DVD reader/CD burner combo
DVD burner - just installed
Windows XP SP1

Thanks in advance

Daniel

[Edited by ScoobyDan - 05/08/2003 08:20:53]

Foot_Tapper

You could try diconnecting all devices, (Hard drives, floppy, cdrom, take out any pci/agp cards.
Try switching on with this basic setup. If you get a few error beeps, things look a bit better, if still dead.
Check fan on PSU , does it spin up ?
Remove RAM and retry.
Is there a lot of caked dust around the CPU heatsink/fan, if so
it could be overheating, clean it out & retry.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

& a new one on me that I found out the other day - completely disconnect PSU from mains & leave for 10 mins...

Some PSUs have a cutout that comes into play & the only way to reset is to discharge its capacitor by leaving it for a while disconnected.

ScoobyDan

Thanks for the answers guys...

Problem now solved - it was down to the power supply. Yesterday I removed everything from the PC, and rebuilt it from scratch (to rule out memory/CPU being loose). With just CPU, heatsink and memory installed, it still wouldn't boot. I managed to 'borrow' a new 450W power supply from my brother's shop, and voila! It started straight away!. Old power supply now in bin, and PC back to it's old self!

Daniel

darlodge

You have tiny harddisks. Only 60MB and 30MB

Glad you got it sorted

Darren