Computer will not boot up, worked previously

[WolverineZac]

I've had my computer for over 2 years now, and it's been working fine, but today when I tried to boot it up... nothing happened. I hit the power button, and nothing happened! I'm pretty sure that the problem is with the cord connecting the power button to the mobo, as the power light on the mobo is on. I checked the cord, and it's plugged in just fine, not broken, etc. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
---Zac

 

[shinybeast]

Just the motherboard power light (is it an LED?)? No fans or anything else come on? Sounds like a power supply problem but can't be sure without more info.

 

[WolverineZac]

Yes, just the LED on the mobo comes. Well, the light on the power button also comes on.

 

[Sharp67]

do you hear anything power up like Hard Disk Drives, fans, etc?

 

[WolverineZac]

My external HDD boots up when I plug it in, but nothing internal boots up.

 

[Sharp67]

Sounds to me like a bad Power Supply Unit bud. Do you have any extra ones you can try to see if that is the problem?

 

[shinybeast]

Maybe one of the rails is gone on the PSU? You could borrow an appropriate power supply and swap to see if you get it back up. If it works, obviously you need a new PSU. If it still doesn't come back up then I would say motherboard problem.

 

[WolverineZac]

Hmm. If it were a PSU problem, would the mobo light still come on? I'm just thinking that if one of the rails were broken, then one thing wouldn't turn on but the system would, but if the whole PSU was broken, nothing would come on, but the mobo light does turn on.

 

[Sharp67]

Well the way I am thinking, you might have too little power to go throughout the whole system. It really doesn't take that much power to light up a LED light. The best thing to do would be put another one in to see if that is the problem.

 

[shinybeast]

Power supplies can do funny things. It's better if they fail completely, makes things easy. I had one that would work fine, then not work correctly (strange random reboots), then work fine, then not work, then work fine and finally it died.

 

[shinybeast]

If you need to get a replacement, DO NOT SKIMP. Buy a quality power supply and don't be fooled by large stated wattages. Quality is most important, wattage is secondary.

 

[WolverineZac]

Alright, thanks guys! I dunno if I have another PSU I can test, but I'll try ordering a new PSU and seeing if that works, if not, I'll just return it. XD

Can you recommend a quality company, but not one with sky-high prices? And what wattage should I aim for, with a single-core CPU, two internal HDDs, two CD-rom drives, an nVidia 8600 GTS, a sound card, and lots of USB ports, etc.? (I do want a wattage that will give me room to grow, I'd like to go dual-core with Socket 775 in the future, and possibly SLI.)

 

[shinybeast]

Spend some time doing some research. A quality 500-600 watt power supply would be sufficient for future growth. Start with wattage that's in there now and add more if you want to increase power consumption in the future. I have a dual core opteron, four hard/optical drives, an 8600GT and not much else (other than memory and cpu, of course). I have a 500 watt Seasonic that's a year old. I'm really leary about recommending brands, 'cause once I do, they will probably get bought out or start making crap. Do your research, it'll be worth it in the end.

 

[WolverineZac]

Ok, I went ahead and ordered
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...-_-WEBLET03SHIP-_-03ship&SRCCODE=WEBLET03SHIP

But I was wondering, if the problem is that the PSU isn't putting out enough power, would there be some way to test that? Like, if I disconnected some of the hardware, could I try to boot it up just to see?