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FrozenGate by Avery

Computer Problem

Ears and Eggs

Ears and Eggs

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Wondering if any computer experts can help me with this. This morning my computer suddenly shut off without warning. Totally dead. Now when I push the power button it tries to come on for a second, the light powers on and you can hear the fans starting to spin up and then it shuts right off again. It repeats this cycle every few seconds. Continuing to try and start with no success. Not sure whether it is most likely a failure of the motherboard, power supply or something else.

It's a Lenovo ThinkCenter M91P Full Tower.
Core i5 2400 3.1GHz 16GB Ram Version.

Thanks for any help, lucky I have an old laptop for backup! :D
 





Your Hard Drive/SSD might be corrupted. I've had an old Windows XP system, a Dell laptop, and an original Xbox One all had their drives fail within a year.
 
I had windows updater crash mine like that before, I finally switched to linux and it's so much faster.
You can hold F4 when you power it up and start in safe mode, boot from a disc or try doing a restore.
 
Sounds like a power supply problem or something came unplugged. Check inside make sure everything is connected tightly, reseat your ram. Make sure the cpu fan is plugged in. If that doesn't work you can try using a multimeter and checking the voltages coming out of your power supply.
 
Ok so I more or less take back what I said. I got in touch with my brother who is an Electrical Engineer and builds computers.

His quote:

"I've seen a lot of power supplies fail, its probably that. If the motherboard went bad he can look for bulging or exploded capacitors because that's a dead giveaway. I would unplug GPU and try to start it. If it doesnt I would swap psu units or take it to best buy. He has a really low power system its probably 500 or 600W. They can plug in their test bench psu for free usually to test. Also motherboards usually have some kind of error code generation. He should either listen for fault beeps or maybe look to see if he had a port on his motherboard to plug in a little buzzer. They're usually really cheap and can tell you what's wrong depending on the beep code. Some mobos even have a 7 segment display that can show an error code with leds. But more than likely it's a bad psu if I had to take a guess. I would also check the start signal pins from his power button to mobo. It's possible the connector came loose or created a short. There are also some more advanced steps you can take like unplugging psu and jumping two pins in its connector to simulate a start signal and seeing if the psu runs by itself (fan spins) without being hooked up to a computer--- Or resetting cmos battery and unplugging everything, letting caps drain and trying again."
 
Run a system diagnostic (should be a UEFI setting). It could also be a RAM chip fault (happened to me before)
 
Thanks for the replies, I am going to open it now and make sure nothing is obviously popped on the mobo and check connections, then I'll try re seating the RAM and running without the graphics card.

I do think I have a spare power supply around somewhere so if that all fails I might be able to try and swap them out.

Unfortunately the system will not stay on for long enough for me to get into the UEFI/BIOS settings. It comes on for literally a second or two and then shuts right off again.
 
those are some pretty decent specs, must not be that old of a computer. im in the process of building my own PC and learning more about how CPUs and other components are made and how they work, so I cant really think of what the problem is. hopfully you figure it out. keep us updated
 
Sorry for the late update, had a couple really busy days at work and didn't have time to work on it. I have opened it up now, nothing visibly wrong on the mobo. I re seated the ram, checked connections and tried to run it without the graphics card. Unfortunately it still has the same problem. I do have spare power supply so next I'll try and swap that out.



EDIT: I have swapped out the power the supply with the spare and now the PC will at least turn on, but nothing appears on the screen. Fans spin up normally and it stays on, but screen is blank.

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
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Good job, much better than hitting it with a brick and buying a new one.......although there is something pleasing about the brick treatment......well for a moment anyway.
 
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Ears and Eggs said:
Sorry for the late update, had a couple really busy days at work and didn't have time to work on it. I have opened it up now, nothing visibly wrong on the mobo. I re seated the ram, checked connections and tried to run it without the graphics card. Unfortunately it still has the same problem. I do have spare power supply so next I'll try and swap that out.



EDIT: I have swapped out the power the supply with the spare and now the PC will at least turn on, but nothing appears on the screen. Fans spin up normally and it stays on, but screen is blank.

Thanks for the help everyone.
Click to expand...
Do you have a graphics card?

If so and your cpu has integrated graphics try removing the graphics card and plugging the monitor directly into the motherboard.

If not you should probably look into a new computer because either your cpu, or motherboard is bad. Or it could also be a bad PSU. But if it's the cpu or motherboard you will pretty much need a whole new computer especially if it's a pre-built.

You can build a decent system yourself for $500 or so. Maybe a bit more if you want better components.

Update:
If you need a new computer here is a good part list. Comes out to a little over $400 for a decent pc assuming you aren't doing any gaming or anything like that. The 2TB hard drive is not necessary if you think the 500gb is all the space you need.

Part List - AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, Cooler Master Elite 350 ATX Mid Tower w/500 W Power Supply - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, Cooler Master Elite 350 ATX Mid Tower w/500 W Power Supply
pcpartpicker.com pcpartpicker.com
Also nice benefit is if you want to do gaming or something in the future it's very easy to add a graphics card down the line and even upgrade the cpu if you need more processing power.
 
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brendon7358 said:
Do you have a graphics card?

If so and your cpu has integrated graphics try removing the graphics card and plugging the monitor directly into the motherboard.

If not you should probably look into a new computer because either your cpu, or motherboard is bad. Or it could also be a bad PSU. But if it's the cpu or motherboard you will pretty much need a whole new computer especially if it's a pre-built.

You can build a decent system yourself for $500 or so. Maybe a bit more if you want better components.

Update:
If you need a new computer here is a good part list. Comes out to a little over $400 for a decent pc assuming you aren't doing any gaming or anything like that. The 2TB hard drive is not necessary if you think the 500gb is all the space you need.

Part List - AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, Cooler Master Elite 350 ATX Mid Tower w/500 W Power Supply - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, Cooler Master Elite 350 ATX Mid Tower w/500 W Power Supply
pcpartpicker.com pcpartpicker.com
Also nice benefit is if you want to do gaming or something in the future it's very easy to add a graphics card down the line and even upgrade the cpu if you need more processing power.
Click to expand...



Thanks, yeah, I was looking into a new build in the near future anyway as this PC is nearly 10 years old now. I don't do a lot of gaming, but do play ARK Survival Evolved and Space Engineers a bit and would want something that can run them decently.




As for the broken PC, I did remove the graphics card and have the monitor directly connected to the onboard graphics port. It seems the power supply was at least part of the problem as the system does turn on and stay on now that I have the spare power supply in there, but I just get a blank screen. The spare PSU is a fair bit lower wattage than the old one, so it could be just not enough power for something even without the graphics card.
 
Ears and Eggs said:
Thanks for the replies, I am going to open it now and make sure nothing is obviously popped on the mobo and check connections, then I'll try re seating the RAM and running without the graphics card.

I do think I have a spare power supply around somewhere so if that all fails I might be able to try and swap them out.

Unfortunately the system will not stay on for long enough for me to get into the UEFI/BIOS settings. It comes on for literally a second or two and then shuts right off again.
Click to expand...
Hey Try disassembling it and cleaning/ changing the thermal paste on the CPU really sounds like a heat problem.
 
Ears and Eggs said:
Thanks, yeah, I was looking into a new build in the near future anyway as this PC is nearly 10 years old now. I don't do a lot of gaming, but do play ARK Survival Evolved and Space Engineers a bit and would want something that can run them decently.




As for the broken PC, I did remove the graphics card and have the monitor directly connected to the onboard graphics port. It seems the power supply was at least part of the problem as the system does turn on and stay on now that I have the spare power supply in there, but I just get a blank screen. The spare PSU is a fair bit lower wattage than the old one, so it could be just not enough power for something even without the graphics card.
Click to expand...

If you go with the build I recommend you you can add a graphics card depending on budget
The cheapest I would go with is a 5600XT or RTX 2060 which are around $300. Best bang for your buck is a 1660ti though which is around $250
 
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