Dang, shut my big main computer off...

[Cybercowboy]

Was going to be gone for a couple of days, shut it down, it was doing updates when I left, and this morning it won't power on at all, as in dead.

:banghead:

[DaveK88]

Damn thats not good. Sorry to hear about that. I can't really offer you any constructive help. Oh by the way that same shit happened to me. I had to get the 14 year old from down the road to fix it. I don't know what he did but he got it up and running. Good Luck:shots:

[kingpin]

Was going to be gone for a couple of days, shut it down, it was doing updates when I left, and this morning it won't power on at all, as in dead.

:banghead:

Since it's your main cpu you must have a backup on it....right?

:D

[Cybercowboy]

Data is backed up, it's just the power supply. This will give me a chance to make it quieter. Some of the fans are almost hard to turn by hand.

[Kevin_73]

Was going to be gone for a couple of days, shut it down, it was doing updates when I left, and this morning it won't power on at all, as in dead.

:banghead:

Make sure there is 110V getting to the power supply. Some power supplies have a indicator light on the back, otherwise you will need a test light or a multimeter. If all is good there you should check the power switch on the front of the tower. I have seen some where the switch is just snapped into a hole in the front of the case to line up with the button on the front bezel, the switch can end up getting pushed inside the case if the button is pushed too hard. The button still "feels" normal, but it is not actually making contact with the little microswitch any longer so nothing happens when you push it.

Edit:
Nevermind, just saw your latest post.

[Iron Chef]

Glad you have your stuff backed up, but scenarios like this are making a really good case for keeping my stuff on the cloud.

[Cybercowboy]

Shit, the power supply tests out ok on the bench. Now I have to tear into it. I built the thing four years ago but I did not want this today!

[78SA]

Throw it to the curb and buy a new one. :leaving:

[Cybercowboy]

I think the fans drew too much current at startup and killed the 5V supply but its just a theory. Trying stuff.

[78SA]

Good luck!

[RED-85-Z51]

it got all messed up from you downloading gay porn...most likely.


It got da aids...

[lander]

Check the system board for any "over full" capacitors.

[ApexOversteer]

it got all messed up from you downloading gay porn...most likely.


It got da aids...

So says the voice of experience...

[BuckyThreadkiller]

How's the battery?

[high desert]

How's the battery?

:iagree: Mine won't power up if the battery is dead.

[Cybercowboy]

There is no battery! This is a desktop with four SATA drives and whatnot. I've narrowed it down, if you can say that, to:

Power Supply
Motherboard
Processor

Sigh. I'm just going to build a new one and get everything upgraded. This is running XP and it is getting long in the tooth anyway. Looking back I probably built it in 2006. It was robust enough to last all this time. This is going to be a complete pain in the ass.

[BuckyThreadkiller]

There is no battery! This is a desktop with four SATA drives and whatnot. I've narrowed it down, if you can say that, to:

Power Supply
Motherboard
Processor

Sigh. I'm just going to build a new one and get everything upgraded. This is running XP and it is getting long in the tooth anyway. Looking back I probably built it in 2006. It was robust enough to last all this time. This is going to be a complete pain in the ass.

Really? While I haven't had a desktop tower in a few years, they all had a small 3 volt, 123A lithium battery on the motherboard.

YMMV

[justind]

That battery is just for mobo settings and the internal clock it will boot with no juice in it.

Try pulling the processor and resetting it with some new thermal paste on it. Unplug all of the drives and stuff hooked up to the mobo. See if you can get it to boot without all of those accessories.

[kingpin]

:iagree: Mine won't power up if the battery is dead.

Look who it is. :cheers:

Any idea who that is in your avatar?

[lander]

The mobo should have a CR2032 or similar flat battery. It's for the CMOS.

[Cybercowboy]

That battery is just for mobo settings and the internal clock it will boot with no juice in it.

Try pulling the processor and resetting it with some new thermal paste on it. Unplug all of the drives and stuff hooked up to the mobo. See if you can get it to boot without all of those accessories.

I've taken it down to the bare bones, re-seated everything that can be re-seated, etc etc etc. I've only been building/working on PC's since the early 80's. It's dead. The power supply seems to work but switching power supplies are not easily diagnosed, not with a multimeter anyway. And I don't have any comparable parts to switch out.

However, I just placed an order from NewEgg for pretty much everything except a video card, hard drives, and a case. Even got new case fans. It's time to build a new system and the first thing I'll do is replace the power supply with the new one and see if that magically fixes it. If so it will make my life moderately easier although at some point I just need to bite the bullet and do it. I have a couple of pro copies of Win7 and Office 2010 so no worries there. Ordered a nice 240 GB solid state drive for the new system (SATA-6) and since I stayed Intel on the motherboard it should recognize the RAID-1 and the RAID-10 that I currently have with the existing SATA HD's. I hope. If not I have everything backed up on Carbonite and can just do a restore, which I have done before for other people and it really does work well - even going from XP to Win7.

[Cybercowboy]

The mobo should have a CR2032 or similar flat battery. It's for the CMOS.

It's got a CMOS reset but if it was just the CMOS then it would at least do something, but alas it does not. CMOS reset is a PITA but nothing I haven't done a zillion times.

My working theory is that the power supply is screwed up. Best Buy of course didn't have one that would work for this computer, and I can't think of a worse time to have to order something. Sigh.

[lander]

Yes, even if the CMOS battery were dead, it should still post with a warning.

[snide]

Glad you have your stuff backed up, but scenarios like this are making a really good case for keeping my stuff on the cloud.

You do know that "the cloud" is just the internet, right?

[Cybercowboy]

You do know that "the cloud" is just the internet, right?

True, but I sure am glad I use "the cloud" to back up my computers, in this case using Carbonite. I probably won't need it, but if for some reason I can't read my current hard drives, it sure will come in handy.

After thinking about it for awhile last night, I ordered two more items for my new computer - a new PCI-3x16 video card (nothing special, but better than the one I currently have) and a 1TB SATA6 hard drive. I should be able to just plug my old SATA3 drives in the four SATA3 connectors and since my MB supports Intel on-board RAID, the old drives should just "be there" as they were before. I hope.

It's nice that this new MB supports 4 SATA6 drives and in addition 4 SATA3 drives. It also supports two of the SATA6 drives in RAID and all 4 of the SATA3 drives in RAID concurrently. Pretty sweet for a $135 motherboard.

[Cybercowboy]

As I suspected the power supply was screwed up. Under no load the voltages were fine but the 12V supply was not able to power the CPU. Decided to go ahead and buy another new power supply so I can have my old computer running while the new one is built and configured. That's the way I like things!

At any rate, all is good. Still waiting on the parts from NewEgg to build the new one, guess I'll need to pick up a new case as well.

[Cybercowboy]

Local external HD + Cloud FTW!

Yup! Carbonite does not image, it's a rudimentary backup at best. You need to image that bitch.

[Cybercowboy]

Have my new system up and running. Wow, it's light years ahead of my old system. SSD boot drive, terabyte data drive that I'll probably turn into a mirror at some point (RAID-1), nice NVidia graphics card, quiet as a mouse, BluRay burner which I wasn't planning on but this motherboard doesn't have an IDE connection so I couldn't use a old DVD burner I was planning on using. As far as I can see you pretty much need to go to BluRay to find an internal drive with SATA, which besides USB is the only way you are going to connect a drive on this thing. I guess I could find an IDE PCI card but, ick.

I've got three 140mm case fans to install, they should show up in a day or so. I also have a black SATA cable to swap out for that hideous red one that came with the BluRay burner.

http://i748.photobucket.com/albums/xx125/Cybercowboy1961/CFE03C31-E578-4F72-A03E-3A9EFD8DC21C-1421-000006F7513F9684.jpg

[Cybercowboy]

Honestly I don't care too much about the OS drive (Wipe, reload OS, reload apps and go) though an image would cut down on restore time if it tanks. :yesnod:

I care more about backing up the data drive. :cert:

I use SyncToy for that. :seasix:

When I loaded Win7 Pro 64bit, it was from a sealed disk retail package that my business partner sent me a couple of years ago for just such an occasion. I didn't have a network cable connected (thought I did but it was a bad cable) and Windows couldn't do activation. Then it started to accuse me of using an illegal copy, even saying it detected an activation exploit that was trying to circumvent Windows Activation. It put a nice "This is an illegal copy of Windows" in the bottom right corner of the screen. I shrugged, rebooted, ran activation, failed again. Turned off the computer, turned it back on, ran activation, happy as a clam now. :skep:

[The_Dude]

My main system is on borrowed time. It's not stable at all. I have to boot it 2 or 3 times to get past the BSOD. Fortunately, I use my laptop for most everything but syncing my ipod and ripping DVDs. I've been watching the newegg shell shockers looking for the right combo deal. What kind MB did you end up with?

[Cybercowboy]

My main system is on borrowed time. It's not stable at all. I have to boot it 2 or 3 times to get past the BSOD. Fortunately, I use my laptop for most everything but syncing my ipod and ripping DVDs. I've been watching the newegg shell shockers looking for the right combo deal. What kind MB did you end up with?

ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 paired with an Intel I7-3770K. The motherboard is pretty much perfect.

Oh, that Intel CPU is a 3.9 Ghz quad core LGA1155 socket job. It is smoking fast. The SSD boot drive really speeds things up too, and you want to move your page file over to a different regular hard drive.

[The_Dude]

ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 paired with an Intel I7-3770K. The motherboard is pretty much perfect.

Oh, that Intel CPU is a 3.9 Ghz quad core LGA1155 socket job. It is smoking fast. The SSD boot drive really speeds things up too, and you want to move your page file over to a different regular hard drive.

Nice. I have a 70G SSD that I bought a while ago and never used. I think it should hold the OS. I know I'm going to have to spend a few hundred bucks. I'm still trying to recover from X-mas.

[Cybercowboy]

Nice. I have a 70G SSD that I bought a while ago and never used. I think it should hold the OS. I know I'm going to have to spend a few hundred bucks. I'm still trying to recover from X-mas.

If that SSD is a few years old just keep in mind that the modern ones have came a long way and are not only bigger and faster, but also much longer lasting and reliable.

So far my 230 gig SSD has about 45 gig on it, plus another 10 gig that Windows puts in a hidden partition. 70 gigs is doable but you better make sure you install all your programs on another drive, let alone your data.

[The_Dude]

If that SSD is a few years old just keep in mind that the modern ones have came a long way and are not only bigger and faster, but also much longer lasting and reliable.

So far my 230 gig SSD has about 45 gig on it, plus another 10 gig that Windows puts in a hidden partition. 70 gigs is doable but you better make sure you install all your programs on another drive, let alone your data.

It's about 8 or 9 months old, so I hope it'll be ok. The new ones are getting pretty cheap though. I have a bunch of sata drives of varying sizes laying around for storage. I finally built a file server with a 4T RAID last year, which freed up all of these external drives I was using.

[Cybercowboy]

That motherboard has six SATA ports for RAID, including plus 2 more. 4 6GB and 4 3GB.

[JRD77VET]

............ I also have a black SATA cable to swap out for that hideous red one that came with the BluRay burner.



I'm far from a computer expert but I always put the side cover on my computers and don't worry about cables colors. :D


:leaving:

[Cybercowboy]

I'm far from a computer expert but I always put the side cover on my computers and don't worry about cables colors. :D


:leaving:

It's not black. :toetap:

[JRD77VET]

It's not black. :toetap:

It can be :D

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41nKWwARlpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[lspencer534]

I've carefully read every post in this thread, and...I don't understand a single word in any of them....:leaving:

[Doug28450]

I've carefully read every post in this thread, and...I don't understand a single word in any of them....:leaving:

You should sue.

[kingpin]

EDIT: By the way, hello from CES. :lol:

Lucky bastitch!

Can you pick me up 2 monoblock amps form a company called Boulder.
You may need help carrying it.

Also stop by the JBL booth and grab me a set of the JBL Everest's.

Thanks in advance.

:hurray:

P.S. I'm no big on Samsung but if you can squeeze the 110" 4k tv from them it would be appreciated also. :seasix:

[Cybercowboy]

You'll regret that. An SSD is exactly the kind of drive you want the page file on and it doesn't get written to except in large chunks due to HDD optimizations over the years.


EDIT: By the way, hello from CES. :lol:

No. You are not correct. I will put my geek-foo against yours now! Engage!

Read this (http://mcpmag.com/Articles/2011/07/05/Sizing-Page-Files-on-Windows-Systems.aspx?Page=1&m=2), and think about why your page file would even be written. Then realize it is relatively rare and best relegated to HD.

[kingpin]

EDIT: Also, no, I'm not grabbing any swag for people. :lol: Certainly not stuff that I'd likely have to steal to get. :rofl:

:sad:

The amps are only $115k each and weigh 350lbs

The JBL's are priced to go at $75k a pair man. It's a steal.

The tv is a one off so you can haggle the price down to probably around $55k.

Take one for the team. :seasix:

[The_Dude]

Rare, yes, but when you do hit disk would you rather thrash the shit out of your HDD and wait for 30 minutes for your system to recover or would you rather your SSD fly through the workload a few thousand times faster?

I was under the impression that SSDs had a limited number of writes before sectors started becoming unwritable. Has that changed on the newer SSDs?

[Cybercowboy]

In case you are interested, my SSD is an Intel 520 Series (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167086), 240 GB.

[kingpin]

I love my Vertex 4 SSD.
Thanks to datawiz.

It was funny though I probably had 3 people telling me I was making a bad decision and that I will have nothing but problems with it when I bought it.

[Cybercowboy]

The Intel SSD Toolbox software is pretty nice too. Here's my disk.

http://i748.photobucket.com/albums/xx125/Cybercowboy1961/ssd_zps3be94c95.png

[The_Dude]

My main system is on borrowed time. It's not stable at all. I have to boot it 2 or 3 times to get past the BSOD. Fortunately, I use my laptop for most everything but syncing my ipod and ripping DVDs. I've been watching the newegg shell shockers looking for the right combo deal. What kind MB did you end up with?
The damn thing wouldn't even get to the post screen this morning. I had one mismatched DIMM in the system that someone gave me as a slot filler. I pulled it out, and all is well. So, I can put off giving newegg $$ for a little while longer.:dance: