Testing / Debugging costs

div0 · 23 Jan 2008 at 14:57

My machine has randomly stopped working recently. Currently the CPU fan doesn't spin up, and the machine won't even POST. When the problem (not POST'ing) first happened, I'm fairly sure the CPU fan was still spinning up normally. But some time since then its definately stopped working.

Anyway - my diagnosis would be that it could be any of the following that would cause it not to POST and/or cause the CPU fan to fail.

Faulty CPU fan - fan tested in another mobo header - fan is fine
Faulty mobo
Faulty PSU

Anyway, I used to just diagnose this sort of thing myself with swapping in parts in other machines. But tbh I'm a bit too busy to do that at the moment.

Was just wondering what a PC 'specialist' repair shop might typically charge for carrying out this sort of diagnosis?

I wouldn't be looking for them to replace any parts, as it's a fairly new build and so I reckon I should be able to RMA the faulty part. Just really want to pay someone else to go through the hassle of finding the faulty item, so that I know which part to RMA.

Anyone paid for this sort of thing recently and got a guideline for how much to expect to be charged?

Thanks

MumboJumbo · 23 Jan 2008 at 16:23

or you could ask on here and opeople can help you out and find the cure

If the cpu fan doesn't spin up is it taking its power from the mobo? Are the other fans connected to psu or mobo? If connected to mobo then try connecting them to your psu and see if they spin up then. In which case it could be a dead mobo.

I know you said you dont ahve time but surely its worth asving the money and youll be without a pc for quite a while so you might as well do it at the weekened instead!

If you really cant be bothered, i beleive pc world do it for a rather extortionate price.

They dont always fix it properly either. With an old mesh pc we had the dvd drive and ahrd drive died.

They replaced the hard drive ok but the dvd drive wasn't installed propaly and he walked out the house with loads of error messages up on screen! i was like WDF. Mesh really **** me off with their cowboys.

div0 · 23 Jan 2008 at 16:52

8igdave said:
If the cpu fan doesn't spin up is it taking its power from the mobo?

Yeah, its connected to the mobo. Not sure if I have any of the right connectors from the PSU to connect it straight into the PSU?!

8igdave said:
Are the other fans connected to psu or mobo?

Yes, case fan(s) are connected to mobo too, they spin up fine. Think they use a different connector to the cpu fan though (possibly), or I'd have tried to swap connections and prove whether mobo or fan was at fault.

8igdave said:
If connected to mobo then try connecting them to your psu and see if they spin up then. In which case it could be a dead mobo.

My main suspicion is that the mobo is at fault.

8igdave said:
I know you said you dont ahve time but surely its worth asving the money and youll be without a pc for quite a while so you might as well do it at the weekened instead!

Yeah I know, but it does end up taking a while to test some combinations. And while it is often easy to rule out a few possibilities, it usually takes a while to be sure you've narrowed it down to one item.

Also, if it is the mobo or psu, then there's a small chance that other components are now damaged. And seeing as the CPU fan hasn't been spinning then its not impossible that it might be damaged too now.

I know what you're saying and normally I'd spend time doing it myself. I ended up doing exactly the same thing with one of my last builds. Similar thing happened, working fine, then one day wouldn't boot. Turned out to be the mobo and a known problem with that board. But it wasn't a quick task to eliminate other things.

But thanks for the advice - I'll certainly have a look and see if I can do something quick to test the fan with another input!

MumboJumbo · 23 Jan 2008 at 19:19

seems strange the other fans would work but the cpu fan doesn't when they are all pluged into the mobo.

Im sure people will help narrow it down at least if you do find time.

have you been down to any pc shops to ask how much they would charge?

fobose · 23 Jan 2008 at 20:13

Some CPU fans wont spin up on a cold boot if the CPU is cool enough, you can change the bios settings so it always spins though, rather than only when needed. I would say the CPU fan is unrelated, plug it in to one of the other mobo fan header ports if those fans spin up to test though.

MumboJumbo · 23 Jan 2008 at 21:48

dont think the pc is turning on is it? And if the mobo was working proplery it would beep to say the cpu fan doesn't work.

div0 · 24 Jan 2008 at 06:49

fobose said:
Some CPU fans wont spin up on a cold boot if the CPU is cool enough, you can change the bios settings so it always spins though, rather than only when needed. I would say the CPU fan is unrelated, plug it in to one of the other mobo fan header ports if those fans spin up to test though.

I think you're right and I'd read that this was the case with my mobo.

Just tried the CPU fan in another header on the mobo and it was fine.

div0 · 24 Jan 2008 at 07:21

Well thanks for the push to try things myself 8igdave

I ended up stripping everything out and clearing the CMOS. Tried booting with only the CPU installed and still no beeps (which seems odd)

Anyway, replaced the graphics card and 1 stick of RAM and it booted with a CMOS error and a message about POST fail. Selected last known good config and it seemed to progress.

Just need to try it with the hard disk connected to see if it'll actually boot. Then add in the other stick of RAM and hopefully it'll all be good.

div0 · 24 Jan 2008 at 07:39

Looks to all be good now.

Once the CMOS had been cleared, it seems like it thought it hadn't been shut down and that it was trying to come out of Hibernation. This failed at first. So I just had to reset, pressed F8 and told it to delete the hibernate data that it was trying to use and just to boot normally.

Thanks guys