no power, again

XWrench3

Daemon Poster
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818
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W. MICHIGAN
quite a while back, in my last computer, i had an intermittent no power problem. which to say means, my computer would not start, even though there was 120 at the computer. see here ( http://www.techist.com/forums/f77/fit-tied-278708/ ). so i bought a new computer case ( cooler master haf-xb evo) and everything has been happy until 2 days ago. and the same "ghost" is back to haunt me. there is 120 at the power cord at the computer, but it will not turn on. if i walk it up the stairs, it fires up the instant i touch the power button. i went and got an extension cord, and ran it from the far corner of the house, and its still dead. so i thought, well, maybe its a hard drive problem, so i unplugged everything but the ssd, and still no go. so up the stairs i went, and plugged it in, and again, it turned on instantly. i have never been one to believe in paranormal activities, but this is so strange, its ridiculous. walk it back down, and its dead again. over the last year, i have added a USB 3.0 card, and a nvidia 1060 graphics card, and neither of them gave me any problems. how do i even go about finding the cause of this?
 
What mother board are you using with this set up?
I've got an ASRock board that is buggy as hell when it tries to boot up. I tried to RMA but those at ASRock are being real A-holes about getting an RMA.
 
Could be your input power is dirty and your psu is staying down due to circuit protection. Is downstairs on a different circuit to upstairs? When you did your extension cord test, was it from upstairs on the same power point that you've successfully tested moving the PC to?
 
What mother board are you using with this set up?
the computer specs shown in my signiture is the computer in question. so the MB is a MSI B150m PRO-VHL.

Could be your input power is dirty and your psu is staying down due to circuit protection.
i guess i am not sure what you mean by "dirty". if you mean corrosion in the connection, no, everything is clean and should make great connection. if you mean some kind of electronic noise or static, i would not have a clue, or even know how to check. yes, the upstairs power is on a completely different circuit, and it is the one i ran the extension cord to. the real confusion for me is that after turning the computer on and shutting it down upstairs, i can bring it back downstairs, and it will work fine for a while. which makes no sense at all.
 
Def sounds like some sort of protection kicking in, unplugging it to bring it upstairs is draining the power enough to reset it I'd think.

So when it's working downstairs and you push the power button to find it doesn't work suddenly, does it look like it tries to turn on for maybe a split second then powers off straight away?

Do you have a spare psu?
 
no, i do not have a spare psu. its really odd that it worked fine for so long, and just out of the blue started acting up. i am pretty good at diagnosing things, as i did it for 40 years for a living (mechanic). i did have one thought, computers are digital, but i am not sure how that effects the a-c side of the psu. about 3 years after we moved into this house (roughly 10 years since this incident), i started smelling smoke in the basement intermittently. one evening it got strong enough and constant enough i thought something might be on fire. so i called the fire dept. and of course they came out sirens wailing. the fireman found that one of the electrical sockets did not have the wires tightened properly. and about 1/3 of the plug was burned off! if there was another plug with one of the wires loose, would that cause the computer not to start intermittently? that plug was on the line that my computer plugs into. but i am not sure which way the power flows. i KNOW that plug has been fixed, but the rest of them i am not sure of. i have not smelled smoke since. but since i did not wire this place, i can not be certain all of the wires are tight. and getting to each plug now is going to be a challenge.
 
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well, it happened again. today, i tried leaving the computer in place, and running the extension cord to 4 different plugs, that i KNOW are on different power circuits in the house. no result, the computer would not turn on from any of them. i tried switching the power supply switch on and off with each plug change. BUT, i did find out new information. after all of the plug changes, i decided to try unplugging all the cables like i was going to take it upstairs to turn it on. i let it set a few minutes, then plugged all of them back into their original locations, and the computer started up just fine. and i was plugged into the wall socket by the computer. so its NOT a power issue, its a cable/device issue. now i have to wait until it will not start again, and unplug each cable one at a time, and wait a few minutes in between. at least i now have a direction!
 
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