what's causing this?

[The One]

Hi there,

I recently bought a pre-built PC for a friend. It arrived and I checked it over myself, was working fine. A few days later he says he can't turn it on (power light is on, fan spins but the PC doesn't boot, doesn't give the boot beep, no signal to monitor etc etc).

I heard about this sort of problem before so I told him to unplug the PC from the mains for 15 minutes and plug it back in. It worked!

Is it a bad PSU or what?

 

[Joe42]

The unplugging thing resets the psu safety circuitry. It means the psu is having some problems either because its faulty or because its not powerfull enough.

Since its pre-built its not really your problem, just send it back under warranty if it happens again.