I have a gaming PC that I use as an unRAID storage server. It normally runs 24/7, but I shut it down for about three weeks because the extreme heat was making several of its seven drives—four of them SAS drives—run hotter than I liked. During that time, the power company also disconnected the electricity for roughly 12 hours.
Now the system will not power on at all. I have tried different outlets and power strips, toggled the PSU switch, held down the case power button, removed the CMOS battery, and tried both the case button and the power button built into the motherboard. There are no fans, sounds, or motherboard indicator lights, even though the board should show signs of receiving power.
The system uses an ASRock FM2A85X Extreme 6 motherboard and an Antec NeoECO 620C power supply. What should I check next, and how can I determine whether the PSU or motherboard has failed?
2 Answers
The power supply is the most likely culprit, especially since the motherboard shows no standby lights at all. Disconnect everything from the PSU except the motherboard power connectors and see whether the system shows any sign of life. You can also test the PSU with a proper PSU tester. Another option is briefly bridging the green PS_ON wire to a black ground wire on the 24-pin connector while the PSU is disconnected from the computer, but be very careful and verify the pinout first. If the PSU starts, reconnect the components one at a time to see whether one of them is causing the problem.
Before assuming the board is dead, check the simple power-switch possibilities: confirm the case connector is firmly attached and try briefly shorting the motherboard’s power-switch pins with a screwdriver. Since the onboard power button also does nothing and no LEDs are lit, though, the PSU or its standby output is more suspicious than the case switch. If the PSU does power on but the system still has no lights or fans, inspect the motherboard for damaged or bulging capacitors and consider that either the board or CPU may have failed.
Reseating the RAM is worth trying if the machine powers on but fails to display anything. In this case, with absolutely no lights or activity, I would test the PSU first.
When you say reconnect everything one at a time, should I power it off between each connection, or can the components be added while it is still connected to power?