Hi all,

I booted up my DAW yesterday, got called away for 20 mins or so, and when I came back, the screen was blank, which I thought was strange in itself as I'm sure the power profile was set to "always on".

After much unsuccessful mouse shoogling and space-bar tapping, I turned the PC off at its power-switch and then back on again, to be greeted by a Beeee-beep-beep! Lifting the lid off, this seems to happen on POST code 25 or 26 (not exactly sure which). The first is "Shadow System/Video BIOS", the second is "Gen Init onboard clock generator and sensor". Then the POST code goes on to FF (which I think means "OK/Booted"), but I'm still left with a blank screen - the monitor clearly isn't getting any input, but it's actively looking for a signal.

The PC is a (6 or 7 year old) Core 2 Duo on an EVGA nVidia 680-based mobo, 4*1GB DDR2 RAM and a GeForce 8800GTX.

I tried booting without the GFX card, I've pulled all but 1 RAM stick and I've swapped the mobo battery, all with the same result.

I've been considering upgrading this DAW for a while, but was hoping to hold off 'til next year, so can anyone suggest a likely cheap fix to this problem? I'm thinking that maybe the GFX card has died, but don't want to spend anything if it's (for example) a dead mobo, meaning that the best solution might be to go for a whole new system.

Cheers,
Si

Yoe seem to have tried all the usual things except swapping in a different power supply. Do you have a "computery" friend who would have one lying around?

I'd be suspect of the power supply too. SOmetimes they can appear to work, eg you know the fans are running and you hear the BIOS beep codes etc. But sometimes some of the power rails can be working but not all of them.

I had a computer that would sometimes work fine, then others not boot, or crash part way through booting. Everything looked fine, I tried all the standard things, remove memory stick by stick etc.

Anyway i ended up removing almost everything and noticed on the connector that was from the power supply to the motherboard there was scorching around one pin, and that was my problem. And yet before that I had changed memory, had drive, reformatted, reinstalled everything, tested each application in isolation and yes it would run for a day or so then, crash. It really had me running round in circles, all down to a faulty PS in the end.

I doubt your system will even boot without a graphics card being installed (unless it's a server mobo or one with onboard gfx enabled).

You could well be right about your graphics card. You might try swapping in a known good (working) graphics card (do you have one in another working PC, or can you borrow one?), just to rule out the possibility that your current gfx card has gone bad (can happen, due especially to bad capacitors). It doesn't need to be the same brand, model or kind of gfx card, any PCI-Express gfx card will do for checking. If your system then boots up, you'll know that your current card has gone bad and should be replaced (the screen resolution will likely be off and you may see a Windows notification about your display driver if Windows defaults to using its basic built-in gfx driver for the other gfx card, but don't worry about that).

Let us know what you find!

Quote Exalted Wombat:

---

Yoe seem to have tried all the usual things except swapping in a different power supply. Do you have a "computery" friend who would have one lying around?

---

Hi Wombat,

Unfortunately, I am the computery friend! I did have an old graphics card lying around, but it was genuinely old - PCI rather than PCIe.

Turns out that it was the GFX though: bought myself a Radeon HD 5450 silent card for under £28, slotted it in, and it booted up straight away. I had noticed some slightly strange sounds coming from my PC over the last few weeks - a fan spinning up then spinning down again at strange times (e.g. just when browsing). I suppose that was the 8800GTX waving the white flag...

I managed to catch your post just before I went shopping too, so I descided to bag myself a new PSU while I was at it: a 700W 80+ Bronze Modular jobby. The manufacturer wasn't particularly familiar to me (XigmaTek, anyone?) but it seems to get a decent review. Although it turns out that I don't need it now, and can return it if I want as it's still in its wrapping, I think I might swap it out anyway. The one that came with my PC is some no-name low-wattage job that's probably getting close to giving up the ghost too.

So, for £105 I should end up with a significantly quieter, but no less powerful PC (apart from graphics grunt, that's not really important to me any more) than I had before, plus I can always use the PSU and GFX in a future build once Haswell comes along.

Cheers,
Si

Quote Goddard:

---

I doubt your system will even boot without a graphics card being installed (unless it's a server mobo or one with onboard gfx enabled).

---

No, I didn't really expect it to work either, but if the graphics weren't faulty, then I might have got a different error code due to removing the card. As the error was the same with or without it did at least confirm that the presence of that GFX card made no difference to the problem.

Not wholly scientific, I grant you, but by skill or fluke it tunred out to be the right answer.

As you described, swapping from nVidia to ATI graphics meant that the PC defaulted to the standard Windows driver, and the desktop shrunk to 800*600 or something equally pokey. It was a fairly simple job to uninstall all the old nVidia stuff (not strictly necessary, perhaps) and download and install the latest ATI stuff.

One "interesting" thing to note, is that when I rebooted after installing the drivers for the new card, the screen went back to its default resolution, and all of my icons went back to their proper places, rather than getting mashed up in one corner as I was used to from XP. Not sure if this is a WIn 7 thing, but it saved me 10 mins of drag-and-drop, nonetheless.

Si

Quote Goddard:

---

I doubt your system will even boot without a graphics card being installed (unless it's a server mobo or one with onboard gfx enabled).

You could well be right about your graphics card. You might try swapping in a known good (working) graphics card (do you have one in another working PC, or can you borrow one?), just to rule out the possibility that your current gfx card has gone bad (can happen, due especially to bad capacitors). It doesn't need to be the same brand, model or kind of gfx card, any PCI-Express gfx card will do for checking. If your system then boots up, you'll know that your current card has gone bad and should be replaced (the screen resolution will likely be off and you may see a Windows notification about your display driver if Windows defaults to using its basic built-in gfx driver for the other gfx card, but don't worry about that).

Let us know what you find!

---

Some boot because they have an onboard graphics chip as well as a customer installed graphics card

Glad to hear you are back 'puting again, Cap'n!

Clever you, subbing in a PCI gfx card to check. Hadn't thought to mention that as possible option

Fanless gfx card is a good choice for a DAW.

Thanks for your report, which I'm sure others having similar problems may find helpful in future.

Quote CaptainChoptastic:

---

I managed to catch your post just before I went shopping too, so I descided to bag myself a new PSU while I was at it: a 700W 80+ Bronze Modular jobby. The manufacturer wasn't particularly familiar to me (XigmaTek, anyone?) but it seems to get a decent review. Although it turns out that I don't need it now, and can return it if I want as it's still in its wrapping, I think I might swap it out anyway. The one that came with my PC is some no-name low-wattage job that's probably getting close to giving up the ghost too.

---

I know them as a Case and Heatsink firm and I wasn't even aware that they did PSU's until this thread!

Is it this one by chance? http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid= 294

If so it appears to be Sirfa built according to the strip down, and whilst I don't normally rate those units I do tend to trust Jonny Guru PSU reviews as they do examine and test them properly.
So if those guys rate it, then good stuff. I can't see any in depth comments on the noise levels but other than that it should do a cracking job by all accounts.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Goddard:

---

Glad to hear you are back 'puting again, Cap'n!

Clever you, subbing in a PCI gfx card to check. Hadn't thought to mention that as possible option

Fanless gfx card is a good choice for a DAW.

Thanks for your report, which I'm sure others having similar problems may find helpful in future.

---

Ah well I kind of forgot that I had that I had that other card - it was burried in one of my "computer bits" drawers. I thought I'd given it to someone else.

So no, I didn't actually try it out. Although, even doing so wouldn't rule out a failure on the mobo's PCIe bus - I think that my mobo is old enough that the PCI and PCIe buses are still separate entities.

I'd been considering going to fanless graphics for a while, but didn't have a reason for the outlay until now. The 8800GTX was obviously way overkill for a DAW, and a legacy of my PC gaming days (I've gone from getting killed a lot on Counter Strike: Source on the PC, to getting killed a lot on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on the Xbox).

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

I know them as a Case and Heatsink firm and I wasn't even aware that they did PSU's until this thread!

Is it this one by chance? http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid= 294

If so it appears to be Sirfa built according to the strip down, and whilst I don't normally rate those units I do tend to trust Jonny Guru PSU reviews as they do examine and test them properly.
So if those guys rate it, then good stuff. I can't see any in depth comments on the noise levels but other than that it should do a cracking job by all accounts.

---

Hi Pete,

Yeah, that's the very one. I only read it after buying it as I was in a hurry to get my DAW back up and running again.

I'm still in a position to return it, but I've seen you stressing the importance of a good PSU before, so am reassured that you think this is up to the job. I didn't have much in the way of choice: we've got a Maplin right across from a local computer-bits shop, and neither of them had much all that inspiring. I was looking for Antec or Enermax or something, but it was pretty much this XigmaTek or nothing. 700W is maybe a bit overkill for a DAW, but again, that was almost all I had to choose from.

On the plus side, as with the GFX, I've replaced two parts of my system that I was most concerned about regarding noise and lifespan. The PSU that came with my PC is some 550W HEC thing, which has one of those tiny 2-3 inch fans, and after 6-7 years of service, must be producing something a fair bit less than that nominal 550W.

Hopefully this will keep me going until next year, when I'm keen to see what Intel Haswell will bring to the table. I'm a tad disappointed with Ivy Bridge - it seems that Intel has deliberately crippled it a bit on the overclocking front just to make the Sandy Bridge Extreme parts seem more competitive.

Cheers all,
Si

Arrrgggh! And again...

So, as I'd already bought a new power supply, I'd thought I'd fit it. That part actually went quite well, I think - plugged everything in and powered up. No problems.

Until...

I also took the opportunity to reroute some cables, and in doing so I detached the front panel conntections (power button, power LED, HDD LED and reset button) from the motherboard. To make sure I'd reattached them correctly I'd pressed the reset button (something I don't think I'd ever bothered with before) and then things all went a bit pear-shaped from then on in.

Firstly the PC kept randomly rebooting/shutting down throughout the POST process. That sort of solved itself, but then I started getting C1 POST errors indicating a RAM issue. After much fiddling with the RAM sticks I eventually got everything up and running with all the RAM installed. I tried rebooting a number of times, just to make sure everything was alright. Apparently it was. That was last night.

About an hour ago I tried powering the PC up, and no joy. The fans spin up for about half a second then spin down again - the same thing happens whether I stab the power button or hold it down - it's the PC equivalent of a car's engine tunring over on the starter motor, but refusing to splutter into life.

The only POST code I get is "--". I've also tried swapping back in the old PSU and I've attempted to reset the CMOS, but with the same results.

Does anyone have any suggestions? This is turning into a complete pain. Is there something I can fix here, or am I maybe looking at buying a new system (CPU, mobo and RAM, anyway)? The computer is about 5 years old (not 6 or 7 as I previously stated, slight miscalculation there) so is more than starting to show its age - I recently bought Superior Drummer 2, and that seems to suck up most of the available RAM.

Please help!

Cheers,
Si

Quote CaptainChoptastic:

---

A
About an hour ago I tried powering the PC up, and no joy. The fans spin up for about half a second then spin down again - the same thing happens whether I stab the power button or hold it down - it's the PC equivalent of a car's engine tunring over on the starter motor, but refusing to splutter into life.

---

Double check every connection and then if no improvement it's tither the PSU's died or your shorting the board.

Seeing as you have the old PSU there you could just hook up the essential connectors without hooking the whole lot up again and see if it helps. If it does the new PSU isn't as good as we hoped, if it doesn't then something you've done whilst routing the cables and moving stuff about is shorting the board. In that case I'd bench the board outside of the case and power it to make sure everything still works and then rebuild it making sure to route cables and such away from the board.

Also if you've run any cables behind the board.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Double check every connection and then if no improvement it's tither the PSU's died or your shorting the board.

Seeing as you have the old PSU there you could just hook up the essential connectors without hooking the whole lot up again and see if it helps. If it does the new PSU isn't as good as we hoped, if it doesn't then something you've done whilst routing the cables and moving stuff about is shorting the board. In that case I'd bench the board outside of the case and power it to make sure everything still works and then rebuild it making sure to route cables and such away from the board.

Also if you've run any cables behind the board.

---

Cheers Pete,

I've already tried the old PSU - same problem. Could be the routing of some of the cables I moved, I'll give that a go.

Si

Right, I've taken the mobo out of the chassis, and have detached all cables from it.

I've then reattached the 24pin and 4/8 pin connections from the old PSU. Using a screwdriver to short-out the power-button pins, I'm getting just the same issue.

There's nothing obvious shorting anything out, and I did one test with the 'board on its edge, just to make sure that nothing sitting under it was causing a problem.

One thing I did notice both today and yesterday it that on powering up, there's a squeeky/whistling noise that I'd associate with an electrolytic cap possibly being on its way out. Yesterday, when I could actually get the thing to boot, this sound was quite loud for a minute or so before fading into the hum of the fans.

Anything else you can suggest?

Si

Quote CaptainChoptastic:

---

Right, I've taken the mobo out of the chassis, and have detached all cables from it.

I've then reattached the 24pin and 4/8 pin connections from the old PSU. Using a screwdriver to short-out the power-button pins, I'm getting just the same issue.

There's nothing obvious shorting anything out, and I did one test with the 'board on its edge, just to make sure that nothing sitting under it was causing a problem.

One thing I did notice both today and yesterday it that on powering up, there's a squeeky/whistling noise that I'd associate with an electrolytic cap possibly being on its way out. Yesterday, when I could actually get the thing to boot, this sound was quite loud for a minute or so before fading into the hum of the fans.

Anything else you can suggest?

Si

---

Swearing loudly and kicking something hard!

Doesn't sound good at all I'm afraid. I'm assumng you have it benched with the bare minimum attached? Check around your board and components for signs of a bubbly/melted capacitor as by the sounds of it your looking for point of failure now I reckon. You could try clearing the bios (battery out time) in case something currupted it along the way, but I'm clutching at straws if you can't post with a minimal bench set up.... sounds like something a bit more fatal has happened in there this time.

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

---

Swearing loudly and kicking something hard!

---

Done that already - it's pretty much top of my debug list!

But here's the strange thing...

Went back to my PC later in the afternoon. It's still in bits, so essentially just the motherboard with the two main power connections plugged into it - no HDDs, PCI(e) cards, optical drives or whatever. Just how I'd left it two or three hours earlier. Tapped the power-on pins, and the bloody thing POSTed!!!

I reassembled it, making sure that it still posted at each step, and it's now back in its case, and apparently working fine. I left it running for a few hours last night, and came back to find it still running. I powered it on this morning and still fine.

My concern is that this might be symptomatic of a dry solder joint, or similar, and could reoccur at any time - one of those irritating, intermittent, "just when it feels like it" faults.

I suppose that if this does continue to happen on and off, then I might be investing in an Ivy Bridge system after all...

Si

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread (although I've only scanned it) is replacing the Mobo battery! I've seen some strange things happening on PCs with old batteries. Could be worth a shot.

Stratt

Edited by Stratt (07/08/12 12:51 PM)

Many of my recent "dead computer" jobs have proved to be bad memory. More than ever used to be, I think.

Quote CaptainChoptastic:

---

My concern is that this might be symptomatic of a dry solder joint, or similar, and could reoccur at any time - one of those irritating, intermittent, "just when it feels like it" faults.

---

When I've experienced it in the past, it's normally far more apparent on a cold start if that's the case. Not that it helps you a whole lot in this context, but if you prove it's the case just don't turn it off until you get a new one!

Quote Exalted Wombat:

---

Many of my recent "dead computer" jobs have proved to be bad memory. More than ever used to be, I think.

---

You think but you can't remember? Funny thing memory...

--------------------
ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Maybe an intermittent connection problem with a memory stick or graphic card, or a power connector. If it recurs, might try a spritz of contact cleaner in the slots and sockets, and re-seating everything a couple of times to scrape off any contact oxidation. A fresh battery prolly would't hurt either as has been mentioned, especially if the mobo is an older one.

A solder joint problem is rare, unless you really rock things when fitting or removing cards and mem sticks. One possibity is a failing electrolytic filter capacitor - there are a lot of bad caps lurking out there on a lot of circuit boards. For info on how to spot a bad cap, just search and you'll find plenty of helpful sites on the issue. A bulging cap is usually easy enough to spot.