Computer won't start up all of a sudden...

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by jmiles301, Sep 14, 2014.

  1. I think you could still have power supply probs. Very common that certain capacitors in the PSU fail. In many cases you can replace them yourself if you have a soldering iron and some basic electronic experience.

    Several years ago our organization had about 80 Dell workstations. A high percentage had PSU failures after a few years.
     
    #11     Sep 16, 2014
  2. Turns out all I had to do was to reseat the video cards. Super simple fix, but have never ran into that issue before.

    I am going to upgrade my PSU "just because".

    I'm currently running the original Dell 350 watt supply but with running a quad card and a dual card I was told that I should have at least a 600 watt unit in there.

    Thanks for all your help and replies, It's very much appreciated.

    Happy trading,
     
    #12     Sep 16, 2014
  3. Not necessarily.

    Dell's PSUs are generally regarded as good quality. Whether you need bigger PSU would depend upon your video cards. (ie, low-power, "trading cards" likely would not require bigger PSU. Gaming cards would, of course.)
     
    #13     Sep 16, 2014
  4. I'm running an Nvidia Quadro NVS 420 and an NVS 290..
     
    #14     Sep 16, 2014
  5. NVS 420 and 295 together draw only about 60W at max usage. In a trading environment, those cards would be running at "near idle", not max power.

    While anything is possible, it's not likely the power requirements of these 2 cards require a PSU upgrade. (Modern computers run only about 120-160W power at idle... and trading environments have "near idle" power requirements, usually, as nearly all functions are run from RAM.)

    1st things I'd do in your case would be (1) remove and reseat the RAM and video cards, (2) check the mobo battery.. replace if low.
     
    #15     Sep 16, 2014
  6. Well my computer was working like normal for a few days after I had simply re-seated the video cards but the problem came back pretty quickly, after a day or two none of my monitors would come on again.

    I tried the quad card NVS 420 on its own in multiple slots and nothing was coming on. However, my dual NVS 290 card does work on its own, but it won't work if the quad card is in the system with it.

    This obviously looks like my 420 card has all of a sudden quit on me but a local IT guy here that I have been working with a little bit said it could be that I need to update my bios in order to get it working again.

    Should I just buy a new quad card or is there still a possibility that it works & that there is something else that I can do to fix it?

    Thanks again,

    P.S. I have also upgraded my RAM from 6gb to 8gb, all Corsair.

    I also have a new Corsair 600W PSU being shipped to me right now.
     
    #16     Sep 22, 2014
  7. If it were a BIOS issue, wouldn't think it would "work for a while, then quit"... rather wouldn't work at all.

    Yes, sounds like your 420 may have broken down. Is there another computer you can try the 420 on by itself?

    Also, did you check the mobo battery? Strange things happen when that gets too weak.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2014
    #17     Sep 22, 2014
  8. Try holding the power button in for 5 seconds, will cause a shutdown. Then restart.
     
    #18     Sep 29, 2014
  9. IamaMars

    IamaMars

    Based on what service people told you it's very very hard to make anything done really with them. You need to test separately each component of them really here. If you have some parts and willing to do that - feel free to do so.
     
    #19     Jul 22, 2019
  10. Sounds like a power issue to me too, regardless of what lights are lit. How many HDD/SSD are you running? Optical drive? Bluetooth or WiFi? shut down or remove anything you don't need, and try again. Oh, if you are running WinDOHs you might have problems with that, though. Your copy might think you have moved it to a different computer. Check all your power connections. One by one, unplug and plug all the connectors then turn it back on. Could it be your BIOS? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. I think it is a power issue and it could be the PSU or it could be a high resistance connection. MoBo battery? Again it doesn't sound like it to me but if you can easily replace it then it would be good to do so just for shits and grins.

    If you remove both graphics cards, does your mobo have onboard graphics? Can you plug in a monitor?

    Once it is running again, I urge you to create a Live USB of Ubuntu. This could be useful in the future. Doesn't cost anything except the price of a USB thumb drive and a few minutes of your time. If your WinDOHs partition somehow becomes unbootable, the Live USB might be useful for troubleshooting and repair. Some darn good disk utilities there, too.
     
    #20     Jul 22, 2019