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Been working on this issue the last couple days and just looking for some confirmation and to make sure I haven't missed anything and maybe some part recommendations.
The psu I think has died is an old 750w modular thermaltake toughpower, around 5-6 years old now and it seems to have gone out in a whimper and not a bang.
was installing some new hardware;
asrock 990fx extreme 3 motherboard
8GB ddr3 stick of Corsair Vengeance LP
The CPU and GPU are nothing taxing, just a phenom II x4 965 and a 7770
Set everything up and pc failed to turn on with first couple tries, then got power to all the fans (case,cpu,gpu, psu etc) with exception to one case fan but failed to post. didn't display anything on screen but got a single repeating beep. I'm not familiar with the asrock ami uefi bios but I think it's a peep for mobo, cpu or lack of power.
Reset after that beep code and everything booted up normally, went into bios and set everything up and checked cpu temps. was all fine at 35c. Did notice that my mouse plugged into the case usb's wasn't working. exited the bios and started to load windows but it reset the pc followed by the repeating beep again.
Had some experience with this before. Had my brothers pc have the exact same issue with windows crashing at the loading screen and it was psu related. His psu was still running but seemed to have died a bit after a power surge and just could never load the OS or do a clean install before restarting.
Rebooted my pc and this time loaded up the windows start up fixer, went through the whole process without any problems but it couldn't fix anything. At this point I disconnected all the fans except for the cpu fan, disconnected all the internal usb and audio headers and removed the 7770 and put a passive HD6450 gpu in there and only left one hard drive connected. same results. removed the hd6450 and the pc booted up first try no problems and gave out either 3 or 5 beeps but at a much higher pitch than before and a quiet whining could be heard from the psu. reset the pc and got the same harsh toned beeps and a caught a whiff of something burning so flipped the switch at the back of the psu.
Couldn't work out where exactly the smell was coming from but seemed to be strongest in the top half of the case around the psu and cpu/motherboard. all attempts to power on the pc have failed since and have tried with 2 different psu's now. one a corsair 600w psu and another a random 400w no name crappy one I had lying around.
So at this point I figure either the motherboard or cpu has been damaged. I've taken the cpu out and tried running it in an old build I'm putting together for the living room. The pc seemed to post fine but freezes at the bios screen, how ever it also does this with the old athlon x2 7550 cpu so I kinda figure that issue is a whole different kettle of fish and more likely due to the crap 400w psu I had just rigged up to test it. (edit. the freezing in the bios seems to be from the old ide hard drive I had connected. guess a reformat or a new sata hd will solve that)
Started testing the psu next. It still runs when using the paperclip trick but of course that's not got any load on it. haven't smelt any burning from it but I can hear a light sizzle from inside on occasion. haven't opened it up yet as I have kinda written it off at this point and have a psu tester arriving in the next couple days. Going to test the ram on a friends am3 mobo over the next few days also.
So It all leads me to thinking the motherboard has burned out when the psu started failing. I can return the motherboard no problem for a refund and the ram and cpu are still under warranty so I don't have any big issues but also need some advice if you think I've overlooked something and what I should replace the parts with.
The motherboard was bought on a quick impulse because I could get it for a cheap £65 but then I realised it's actually awful for the new 8 core piledrivers that I might want to upgrade to at some point so don't really want the same board. hear the asrock 970 extreme boards are the same so I'm looking for a board in the same kinda range that leaves the door open to upgrading to 8 cores later on.
I guess I'm looking for a new psu as well. I've built a few pc for family and friends and I pretty much stick to corsair psu's and think the 600w builder model is great but is there others I should consider? I've seen the 600w builder for £60 but can also get the corsair 750w builder and 700w gaming series for around £70
And one final question. do you think it would be worth while trying to rma the phenom x4 965 just in case some damage has been done?
sorry about the wall of text but tried to put as much detail in as possible
The psu I think has died is an old 750w modular thermaltake toughpower, around 5-6 years old now and it seems to have gone out in a whimper and not a bang.
was installing some new hardware;
asrock 990fx extreme 3 motherboard
8GB ddr3 stick of Corsair Vengeance LP
The CPU and GPU are nothing taxing, just a phenom II x4 965 and a 7770
Set everything up and pc failed to turn on with first couple tries, then got power to all the fans (case,cpu,gpu, psu etc) with exception to one case fan but failed to post. didn't display anything on screen but got a single repeating beep. I'm not familiar with the asrock ami uefi bios but I think it's a peep for mobo, cpu or lack of power.
Reset after that beep code and everything booted up normally, went into bios and set everything up and checked cpu temps. was all fine at 35c. Did notice that my mouse plugged into the case usb's wasn't working. exited the bios and started to load windows but it reset the pc followed by the repeating beep again.
Had some experience with this before. Had my brothers pc have the exact same issue with windows crashing at the loading screen and it was psu related. His psu was still running but seemed to have died a bit after a power surge and just could never load the OS or do a clean install before restarting.
Rebooted my pc and this time loaded up the windows start up fixer, went through the whole process without any problems but it couldn't fix anything. At this point I disconnected all the fans except for the cpu fan, disconnected all the internal usb and audio headers and removed the 7770 and put a passive HD6450 gpu in there and only left one hard drive connected. same results. removed the hd6450 and the pc booted up first try no problems and gave out either 3 or 5 beeps but at a much higher pitch than before and a quiet whining could be heard from the psu. reset the pc and got the same harsh toned beeps and a caught a whiff of something burning so flipped the switch at the back of the psu.
Couldn't work out where exactly the smell was coming from but seemed to be strongest in the top half of the case around the psu and cpu/motherboard. all attempts to power on the pc have failed since and have tried with 2 different psu's now. one a corsair 600w psu and another a random 400w no name crappy one I had lying around.
So at this point I figure either the motherboard or cpu has been damaged. I've taken the cpu out and tried running it in an old build I'm putting together for the living room. The pc seemed to post fine but freezes at the bios screen, how ever it also does this with the old athlon x2 7550 cpu so I kinda figure that issue is a whole different kettle of fish and more likely due to the crap 400w psu I had just rigged up to test it. (edit. the freezing in the bios seems to be from the old ide hard drive I had connected. guess a reformat or a new sata hd will solve that)
Started testing the psu next. It still runs when using the paperclip trick but of course that's not got any load on it. haven't smelt any burning from it but I can hear a light sizzle from inside on occasion. haven't opened it up yet as I have kinda written it off at this point and have a psu tester arriving in the next couple days. Going to test the ram on a friends am3 mobo over the next few days also.
So It all leads me to thinking the motherboard has burned out when the psu started failing. I can return the motherboard no problem for a refund and the ram and cpu are still under warranty so I don't have any big issues but also need some advice if you think I've overlooked something and what I should replace the parts with.
The motherboard was bought on a quick impulse because I could get it for a cheap £65 but then I realised it's actually awful for the new 8 core piledrivers that I might want to upgrade to at some point so don't really want the same board. hear the asrock 970 extreme boards are the same so I'm looking for a board in the same kinda range that leaves the door open to upgrading to 8 cores later on.
I guess I'm looking for a new psu as well. I've built a few pc for family and friends and I pretty much stick to corsair psu's and think the 600w builder model is great but is there others I should consider? I've seen the 600w builder for £60 but can also get the corsair 750w builder and 700w gaming series for around £70
And one final question. do you think it would be worth while trying to rma the phenom x4 965 just in case some damage has been done?
sorry about the wall of text but tried to put as much detail in as possible
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