OT: Help! My new PC is Dead :(

JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/20/2006, 6:17 AM
I’m talking really dead. Like you push the on switch and absolutely nothing happens. No fans, no light, no beeps, nothing! It is as if the switch wasn’t even pressed. Here is what lead up to this:

I was working on some audio in Vegas the other night and I got a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) with an error about a BAD_POOL_ERROR. I had never seen this before but it has something to do with memory I presume. So instead of hitting the reset button I hit the on/off switch by mistake. Realizing this I hit it again and nothing happened. Just dead silence. I start to remove things to take it apart and I try the on switch as I remove thing. After I removed a USB hub it came on again. So I continue work on my project.

The next day the computer won’t turn on again. So I start removing things and eventually it comes back on. I plug things back in and it continues to work. I run memory diagnostics for a few hours and all of the tests complete fine with no errors. A few days after that it won’t turn on and I notice I had left a memory card in the USB reader. I take the memory card out and it turns on again. Coincidence?

Finally the other day it no longer comes back on. I’ve unplugged everything. I open the case and the motherboard green light that indicates power is lit. The red laser on the mouse is lit and when I plug and unplug the keyboard the lights flash for a moment as it gets power. So the power supply seems to be working BUT, none of the USB devices have any power. All of their lights are off. It is curious that unplugging a USB hub was what got it working again the first time.

I’m thinking it’s a bad motherboard. Why else would the USB ports not have power? What do you guys think?

~jr

Comments

winrockpost wrote on 4/20/2006, 6:30 AM
First off ffeel a little silly giving you computer advice , but,
what the heck,, sounds like power supply to me. First though ,I would reset the jumper on the board to set the system to default ,fail safe, and see if it fires up. If not , try another power supply, then I would call you .
Good luck
jrazz wrote on 4/20/2006, 6:33 AM
I would try another PSU as they can still pass through power, but just not what the system needs if there has been a malfunction. I would test that just to get it out of the way to make sure that it was not the issue (path of least resistance). I had a similar problem that caused me to rule out the PSU due to some items still getting power, but nothing would come on, except the little green light and my keyboard (usb) would light up. Nothing else was responsive. Once I pulled out all of my hair, I tried the simple thing, replacing the PSU and it worked.

j razz
craftech wrote on 4/20/2006, 7:19 AM
Did you build it yourself?

Look at the back of the PSU and see if it was shipped with the voltage selector switch set to 220 instead of 110 volts.

If that's OK, give us some more details about the system.

John
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/20/2006, 7:28 AM
> First off ffeel a little silly giving you computer advice , but,

Winrock, If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to always be humble because no matter how much I think I know, I might not be approaching the problem from the correct angle and so there are solutions I just cannot see. If I were debugging a car that wouldn’t start, I would go to one end of the ignition system (i.e., the spark plugs) and work my way to the other (the coil), checking for power along the way. Why would it be any different with a computer? I should have started with the PSU and only after I convinced myself that it is supplying sufficient power move on to the motherboard and other things.

> I had a similar problem that caused me to rule out the PSU due to some items still getting power, but nothing would come on, except the little green light and my keyboard (usb) would light up. Nothing else was responsive.

BINGO! That’s exactly what’s going on here. Thanks guys. I guess it’s time to dig up my multi-meter and check the power coming out the PSU. I just assumed the green light on the motherboard meant it was getting sufficient power but it might not mean that at all. It might just be a trickle. I do have 4 hard drives and two optical drives hooked up to it. Maybe I’ll just buy a bigger power supply anyway. You can never have enough power. ;-)

> Did you build it yourself? Look at the back of the PSU and see if it was shipped with the voltage selector switch set to 220 instead of 110 volts.

Yes, I built it and it’s been running fine for several months. Antec Sonata II case with stock 450w PSU. The parts list is are on my PC Equipment page.

~jr
Laurence wrote on 4/20/2006, 7:34 AM
Some other signs that a power supply may be going bad are when you press the on button and there is a delay before the computer comes on, or if the computer spontaniously reboots when doing something that relies heavily on the GPU.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/20/2006, 7:47 AM
The power supply is certainly the most likely suspect. However, it is also possible for a component to develop a short and cause the power supply to "crowbar," a term that refers to a circuit in any power supply that shuts it down when a short is detected. I can't remember if you mentioned it, but have you added anything in the past month or so?
craftech wrote on 4/20/2006, 8:05 AM
As I recall that particular power supply had some short wires that didn't quite reach in some computer cases. Check the connectors.....reseat them.
I remember reading about a couple of those units having one of the main power connector pins that was shoved up inside the plastic connector housing and was making intermittent contact with the header on the mainboard. Remove it and take a look.
I lind of doubt that the capacitors are bad on that particular unit.......maybe.

John
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/20/2006, 8:48 AM
All great advice. I will disconnect everything and check all of the pin connections. I haven’t made any changes to the system it quite a while so this came as a complete surprise. It is curious that it started after a BSOD BAD_POOL_CALLER error. I got that error one more time before it died completely. Curious that once I did get it to start, I could work for 18 hrs straight without any problems. I’ll check all of the connections as soon as I get back home.

~jr
DavidMcKnight wrote on 4/20/2006, 9:13 AM
(deleted)

After I re-read your original post mine seemed silly. I'll keep lurking, good luck on fixing this!

DM
rmack350 wrote on 4/20/2006, 9:14 AM
There are lots of usenet posts on "BAD_POOL_CALLER ". So many that it's hard to narrow anything down. However, I'm thinking it's not the power supply. In fact, I'm betting on USB devices. If you happen to have a PS2 mouse and keyboard you should start by swapping those in, in place of the USB mouse and keyboard I assume you're using.

Disconnect everything else that is USB for now, and see if things work. If you find that the machine is reliable without USB devices then you might start adding just one at a time - the mouse today, the keyboard tomorrow, the card reader the next day.

You have a built in card reader. Is it included as a possible boot device? maybe it shouldn't be.

I see all sorts of things blamed on "BAD_POOL_CALLER", including a corrupt page file, corrupt print spool, bad device drivers, MS updates gone bad. The one thing these have in common is that they aren't very closely related to the PSU.

With 4 disc drives, could it be that one drive is failing? Maybe check them all to see if any have beeen downgraded to PIO mode as that's often a sign of bad writes.

Rob Mack
TomG wrote on 4/20/2006, 9:33 AM
jr,

Please post when you find out what the problem is. I built my own machine 2 month ago and the majority of my components are exactly as you posted on your PC Equipment page. I also have the Sonata II case with the 450w PSU. So I will be very interested in hearing where the failure is....

Thanks,
TomG
riredale wrote on 4/20/2006, 9:47 AM
A few months back my PC died, and there was the odor of burning insulation in the air. Swapped the power supply, and it would try to boot, then shut down. Turned out to be some defective capacitors on the motherboard, which fried the old power supply and took out my Pioneer DVD burner and 3 (three!) hard drives.

I assume you know all about looking to see if there are any capacitors on your motherboard with rounded tops and/or junk oozing from them.
soaringrocks wrote on 4/20/2006, 12:56 PM
If it is a power supply here's a good write up from Tom's Hardware from a few months ago.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/07/5_power_supplies_get_the_full_juice_treatment/

I have no earth shaking advice on troubleshooting. Since it's dead config to a minimal system and if it works start adding cards or swapping components.

Good luck.
GGman wrote on 4/20/2006, 2:23 PM
You mention a lot of USB stuff. USB also supplies power to units. Check the Device Manager to see if it shows any problems. Maybe you added something or plugged something in that made changes.

GG
craftech wrote on 4/20/2006, 2:38 PM
Two things that I noticed after a pretty extensive Google search on the motherboard was that it required inordinate amounts of power (perhaps adding the USB devices pushed the limits of the PS) and that many of those motherboards simply "died" like yours did. None of them were very happy with ASUS lack of response on the matter either.

Take a VOM and measure the voltage on the 5V rails under load and see what it measures.

John
Jim H wrote on 4/20/2006, 5:53 PM
I've got the same mobo with a 4800+. I had a hard time getting this system started... I'd get a black screen but nothing more. Green light was on. When it would boot it ran fine except for games would make it crash. I finally discovered that my hypertransport speed set to 4X would fix the problem. "Auto" is default and 5X is max but neither would work. I went through 2 mobos and 2 PSUs before I came upon that simple solution.

You need to look in the BIOS settings to change. If you can't find the setting email me and I'll look it up.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/21/2006, 6:20 AM
Thanks for all the advice. I’ll have to leave the BIOS checking until I can get it to even boot. Right now I’m not even getting a light on the mouse anymore but that motherboard light is still on. I’m going to take it apart tonight, remove all connections to the motherboard and reseat them, check the capacitors on the motherboard, and then see if it will boot with only one hard drive and no optical drives. It that doesn’t work, I’ll buy a new PSU and see if that fixes it. That will probably take a few days to get via the Internet so this is gonna take a while. :(

~jr
fldave wrote on 4/21/2006, 6:34 AM
JohnnyRoy,

You might try replacing the motherboard CMOS battery first (if it has one). $2-$3. may just be a defective battery.

Before you go buying lots of other stuff.

Dave
aussiemick wrote on 4/21/2006, 5:23 PM
My sons PC won't boot up somtimes, I just take out the CMOS battery, put it back and away it goes. Just an easy check.

Mick
rmack350 wrote on 4/21/2006, 5:54 PM
First off, I hope you are sending support notes to Asus about this.

It always strikes me as odd that you'd see power on a USB bus when the system isn't even running. My board does this from the onboard headers but not the backpanel USB ports.

I'd definitely remove all USB devices and see if the system boots. For that matter, I think you could skin it down to nothing but a CPU and see if it'll boot.

If you need to reset the BIOS to defaults you can pull the battery for a ten count, or you can move the jumper labeled clrtc to pins1-2 or 2-3 (opposite of whatever it is now) for a ten count, then move it back before booting the system. This has about the same effect as pulling the battery except that it doesn't reset your clock.

It seems a shame to buy components on the off chance they might solve something.

Rob Mack
ushere wrote on 4/22/2006, 1:12 AM
in passing....

i've had two computers display similiar problems, some time ago now - but both suffered from clogged cpu fans (they were both in enclosed spaces and the rooms carpeted). i simply took the vaccum cleaner with a small nozzle and a stiffish bristle paint brush (artists), and litterally 'swept' my problems away.

leslie
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/22/2006, 8:56 AM
Just a quick update. I paired it down to the bare minimum and removed the battery and reset the CMOS jumper and still got nothing. Not even a light on the mouse anymore so I’m pretty sure it’s the PSU. I did some searching and found this review of my ASUS A8N-SLI Premium motherboard at newegg.com:

Cons: Don't use with <400W power supply. My antec case came with a SmartPower 350W supply. Worked fine for for 4 months, then after a long day of video rendering, it would not boot. Power supply fried. Only have 1 video card, three hardrives, and a DVD drive in it. I have read of compatability problems with Antec power supplies, but my other board is runing on an Antec SmartPower 450W, with no problems. I suspect the problem has more to do with capacity than compatability.

WOW. I could have written that review! That is exactly what happened to me. I guess this mobo is really power hungry and it doesn’t help that I have 4 disc drives, 2 optical drivers, and all 8 USB ports in use. :(

I’ve ordered a Seasonic S12-500 PSU which has gotten very high ratings for efficiency and quiet running (which is one of my criteria for this PC) so we’ll see if a really good 500W PSU fixes the problem. That probably won’t arrive until Thursday so I’m gonna have to get by on just my laptop until then.

I was always a but suspect of the quality of the PSU in the Sonata II case. The S12 cost more than the Sonata II case and PSU combined so what could the Sonata PSU alone be worth? No much I’m afraid. While 450W should have been enough power I am really stressing it in Vegas. The OS is on the 1st drive, my ACID Loops are on the 2nd, and my video source and rendering is done on the 3&4th in a RAID 0. So all the drives are constantly being accessed.

We’ll just have to wait and see if this fixes the problem.

Question: I have never had to clear the CMOS in one of my PC’s before. I assume I am now going to have to set my RAID up again. Will it use my existing drives with data on them or did I just wipe out my chance of getting my data back. (I have never used a RAID before and may stop using it after this because I can’t just pull the drives out and use them in another PC)

~jr
craftech wrote on 4/22/2006, 9:16 AM
Isn't your raid controller setup separate from the bios configuration?
Doesn't it appear after the initial bios boot screen?
John
TomG wrote on 4/22/2006, 9:53 AM
jr,

That's interesting to hear about the 450W PSU in the Sonata. Will the new PSU fit easily into the Sonata case? Again, I will be anxious to hear about the new PSU. I probably don't pull as much watts since I'm not a full time editor, but I'm still nervous that the 450W PSU that comes in the Sonata will fail over a relatively short period of time.

TomG