PC Troubleshooting Help Please?

January 26, 2013 9:18 AM

My son's PC, a dual boot Ubuntu / Win 7 box that I built myself about 3 years ago will not boot. It was working fine last night. When you power up the CPU fan runs for less than a second then shuts down and nothing else happens. The motherboard LED does stay lit, so there is some power getting to the board. Am I correct in guessing that replacing the power supply is my most likely route to a fix?
posted by COD to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

That is only one of several possibilities - to check that first, pull your son's PC apart to only a keyboard, monitor, motherboard / CPU and plug it into a known good PSU from a different computer. (Take all cards out of the motherboard.)

You should be able to get past the POST test.

If you change a known good PSU and it still gives the same symptom (nothing happens), it could be everything from a short on the motherboard, a bad memory stick, or a burned out capacitor - look over the motherboard carefully to see whether you can find anything awry.

Good luck!
posted by scooterdog at 9:29 AM on January 26, 2013

If you get some power, the PSU is one of the last things I would suspect. I would start by removing all RAM sticks and re-seating them, should be a fairly quick thing to try.
posted by papafrita at 9:56 AM on January 26, 2013

If the thermal paste between the CPU and its heat sink is compromised, it will shut itself down almost immediately in the way you describe. Do you get any beeps?
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:32 AM on January 26, 2013

Response by poster: It was the power supply. When I called the local indie PC repair guy to see if he had a power supply in stock he offered to test it for free if I brought it by the shop.
posted by COD at 10:58 AM on January 26, 2013