HELP! What have I done? No power!

Hi all I am at the end of the rope here. I do not know what happened but lastnight my pc turned itself off. Just poof, no error message, nothing. So I powered back on and it ran fine, until this morning. Then it kept doing it. I would get up to go do something, come back and it would be off, kinda. The power light would be off, but the little light below it would be orange. Now I can't get far at all. I got a screen saying stuff about CHKDSK and deleting indexes and inserting indexes. Then poof again. I also tried to open in the Last Known Good Configuration, (didn't work). I know its old and I should have everything I need backed up but I am in a world of hurt because I do not. It is an HP pavilion 513n I bought in 2002, running WindowsXP. I just added memory to it a couple of weeks ago. I also tried to do the static thing, where you unplug everything, hold the power button and plug everything back in, start it and voila…No voila, though. Thanks in advance for any hep anyone can give me to restore this pc.

Hello cburson

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your HP desktop.

Do you know what standby , hibernate, or suspend means when it comes to computers?

The reason I am asking , that is what it sounds like your computer is doing to you when you walk away. Computers can go into a low power state and start turning off devices to save electricity when you dont do something on them for a period of time.

A great thing for Laptops operating off batteries but never really saw the need to use the features on Desktops. Its is about degrees of powersaving the computer will do depending on a timeframe you choose, or default timeframe set by the OS when first installed.

This can be minutes or hours or never. (ie, turn off the monitor after 15 minutes of no activity, then turn off the harddrives after 30 minutes of no activity, ect ect…)

If you have the fancy hp keyboard you have a button with a quartermoon symbol on it to imediately to put it into the standby/hibernate routine without waiting for timers.

The amber light you see probly is a indication that the harddrive has been shutdown to keep from spinning but there is still some power applied to it.

It sounds very much like it is not resuming from that state and not spinning up again.

So for the first try at correcting your issue, try adjusting the power settings. Here is a link from HP. Go down to step 5 and do that step only.

Changing the Powersettings.

Let us know how you get on with this. It could be that you have a hardware issue instead.

Regards

Kaz.

Thank you for your ideas, however, it is not a standby/hibernation thing. I use that feature every night instead of shutting down. The power button will flash green while it is in that mode. Also, the light on my modem for "PC" goes unlit with these occurances. That never happened before. I went and bought a new CPU, but I need to get the stuff off the other one. It was an old one and needed replaced anyhow. I just don't want to lose all my stuff. I will try to get the old one to stay on long enough to do a System Restore. Perhaps that will help. I read a few things about a loss of power. Like I had too many things going on at one time and the pc couldn't keep up. I am not too sure that is it; I just replaced the memory with 1GB. Any other ideas?

Greetings cburson Several ideas in fact now that the power setting is now eliminated. Since you installed ram, you are familiar with getting in and out of the case. Plus all of the ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) precautions involved. 1. Check for dust and debris in the computer in the cpu fans and coolers, in the board slots and powersupply vents. Could have been heat related shutdowns. Doesnt take much to cause problems. Do please check this without the power/mains plugged in. We would like to keep you as a member. 2. Could be a powersupply going out. Short of testing with a meter or test swapping with a known good powersupply I cant tell. 3. If the memory you bought is the last thing done hardware wise, remove it by all means and see if your problem duplicates. Checking with HP on your specific model did not reviel to me on what the amber light indicates. The model they show only has one powerbutton and a light below it. In my experience that light is usually indicates harddrive activity. Solid on usually means Lock or freeze, regular disk access will flash or pulse. Good way to tell if you are in a lock or freeze is to try the cap lock or num lock button and see if they switch on or off. If they dont you are froze up. 4. Check on your computer when you are booted up From the Windows XP desktop, click Start , All Programs , and then one of the following options: HP Tools or Hewlett-Packard , hp pavilion pc tools or PC Help & Tools. Should be some test options like "PC DOCTOR" You should be able to run some tests from there. Might point out what the fault is. 5. You may have hit it on the head about too much stuff trying to run with too little power. Also dont count out a power problem comming from the wall socket either. Good test is to plug in a lamp instead of the computer and watch to see if it dims or flickers. . Let us know how you get on, might be a few more rabbits to pull out of the hat. Regards Kaz.

Hi Kazzoo ok, here we go… 1. I will try this first. It was pretty dusty in there… 2. My hubby is an electrician. Can he use his meter? How much power is supposed to be supplied? 3. The memory has been working fine for several weeks now, not a likely problem. 4. Not sure I can get it to boot up again to check it. 5. If I am running too much, would that be PPrograms or devices? I had it plugged into a protector with other things (printer, modem, phone, monitor, cell charger, etc.). All others work fine. The next thing I will need help with, and will post elsewhere, is somehow networking or connecting old pc to new pc to transfer, if possible. Thanks Kazzoo!

Nothing against electricians, but properly testing a power supply is not the same as properly testing the main circuit panel in a house. It is not a simple matter of making sure the PSU is putting out the correct voltages, it must do so under various loads within ripple tolerance levels. Well equipped professional shops have sophisticated testing equipment specifically designed for testing PSUs, or a qualified electronics technician can do it with an oscilloscope. However, it is generally easier and faster to swap in a known good and properly sized PSU.

That said, even the best technician has problems with intermittent failures - unless the device under test fails at the moment he or she is testing.

Short of having a qualified technician test the PSU, or swapping in a known good and properly sized PSU, there are inexpensive plug in testers available. I keep a FrozenCPU Ultimate PSU Tester in my road kit. It is not good as testing the power supply under a true load with a oscilloscope in the hands of a qualified technician, but close. The advantage of this model is that it has an LCD readout of the voltage. With an actual voltage readout, you can better detect a "failing" PSU. Lesser models use LEDs to indicate the voltage is within some "range". The CompUSA PSU Tester is an example of testers that use LEDs. These are less informative, considerably cheaper, but still useful for detecting PSUs that have already "failed". Newegg has several to choose from. All these testers contain a "dummy load" to fool the PSU into thinking it is connected to a motherboard, and therefore allows the PSU to power on, if able, without being attached to a motherboard - great for testing fans too.

I agree this is not a hibernation or suspension problem - they don't normally happen when you are using it and if they fail, it usually results in systems not waking up - not systems crashing. This could be heat related, so I agree with those that suggest making sure the internals are clean of heat trapping dust. Make sure all fans spin properly and that you have good front to back air flow. If you have added more than just RAM since that computer and PSU were installed, the PSU may be underpowered. Use the eXtreme PSU Calculator Lite to determine your power supply requirements. Plug in all the hardware you think you might have in 2 or 3 years (extra drives, bigger or 2nd video card, more RAM, etc.). Be sure to read and heed the notes at the bottom. I recommend you set Capacitor Aging to 30%, and if you participate in distributive computing projects (e.g. BOINC or Folding@Home), I recommend setting TDP to 100%. Then look for brands listed under the "Good" column of PC Mechanic's PSU Reference List. Don't try to save a few dollars by getting a cheap supply. Digital electronics needs clean, stable power. A good, well chosen supply will provide years of service and upgrade wiggle room.

Inspect the motherboard for leaky capacitors. Leaky capacitors are a common cause of sudden system lock ups and reboots. Look for white to dark brown, dried foam leaking from the tops or bottoms of the capacitors. The capacitors look like tall soda cans, many of which surround the CPU socket. Bulging capacitors are a sign leakage is about to occur. A motherboard with leaky capacitors can be repaired, but often it is more cost effective to replace the motherboard.

Sadly, PCs that crash hard often end up with a corrupt hard drive and boot sector. The chkdsk warning is a sure sign of that. I think first, you need to verify your PSU is good, clean the system of dust, inspect for capacitors. Then see if you can boot into Safe Mode. If you can, go to Start > Run and enter: chkdsk /r - not the space before "/r".

If prompted to allow chkdsk to run at next boot, follow prompts to allow it to do so.

If still unable to boot or chkdsk is unable to run, then I would suggest pulling that hard drive and temporarily installing it in another computer or external enclosure attached to another computer, then transfer your critical data files.

I also tried to do the static thing, where you unplug everything, hold the power button and plug everything back in, start it and voila…

That is not any static thing that I have heard of. ESD precautions to prevent damage from static discharge involve keeping your body at the same potential as the computer parts - this is done, typically, by touching bare metal of the case before and frequently during any activity inside the case, such as cleaning or removing or replacing parts. Alternatively, many folks use an anti-static wrist-strap so they don't have to remember to keep touching metal. It is also important to note that the ATX Form Factor Standard, which virtually all PCs adhere too, calls for +5Vsb standby voltage to be applied across the motherboards at several point whenever the PSU is plugged in and if so equipped, the master power switch on the back of the PSU (many don't have one) is set to on. This means if you install or remove ANY hardware component with the PSU plugged in, you risk destroying that device, and the motherboard! So, except for visually inspecting if fans spin, all maintenance (including cleaning) should start with powering down AND UNPLUGGING the computer from the wall!

Wow. I hope I did not mess things up even more…
I took the back off and vacuumed (gently and carefully) out the piles of dust in there. Much worse than I thought. And the machine was unplugged, but I was not touching any metal or anything. I plugged in the monitor and and the wireless keyboard and mouse. Powered on. No orange light now and it is still running, but it would not pick up my monitor. I tried different combos: unplug power supply to monitor, plug in and turn on; unplug cable from monitor to pc and plug back in; etc.

If still unable to boot or chkdsk is unable to run, then I would suggest pulling that hard drive and temporarily installing it in another computer or external enclosure attached to another computer, then transfer your critical data files.

I think it is pretty much toast, but is there still a chance that I can get my file off of it on to the new cpu? What if it was a virus that caused the crash? If I can transfer will I risk infection on the new one?
I saw the networking links recommended in some of the other posts, but is there a link to a magic, just for idiotscan walk me through this step by step?

p.s. I checked the capacitors. There are black ones, brown ones and blues of all different sizes…
The blue ones have stuff (like you mentioned before) on them….What does that mean?

Thanks!

Think of the Capacitors as little cans full of a substance called electrolyte. If the capacitor has burst or swelled you can see this fluid as a brown or tan colored substance. If you have ever seen a leaky or corroded battery from a flashlight you have seen electrolyte. Looks alot like rust.

What this means is that the motherboard has failed and will need replacing if you are seeking a repair.

Here is a link to a picture

Leaky capacitors

For the file transfer, I personally would buy a hard drive enclosure and install the old harddrive to it. The enclosure is pretty much a metal/plasitc box with a usb cord on it. Once installed to the enclosure, plug it into a availible usb port on the computer you wish to put the old files on. It will show up as a new drive, you can see and access it through "MY COMPUTER".

Just google up hard drive enclosures and you will see lots of choices.

About the virus concerns, run your antivirus app on the drive to give you confidence before transfering any files.

Regards

Kaz.

That picture shows leaks from the bottom but often they leak from the top as the brown stuff seen here:

[external image: Posted Image]
In any event - that's bad and it means the motherboard is failing. How old is it? It may still be under warranty.

Many folks advise against using a vacuum cleaner to clean out PC. The reason given is the air and dust particlus zipping past the nozzle can build up substantial static charges, resulting in fatal damage to ESD sensitive devices. I agree it is true that air and dust particles zipping past can (will!) generate static in the nozzle, and I agree this is a VERY SERIOUS and legitimate concern. But so is heat! And using some sort of forced air is best at removing heat trapping dust, so if compressed air is not possible, vacuuming is the next best thing. So with care you can use a vacuum cleaner and a soft paint brush. Because of this static, it is absolutely essential ESD precautions are observed to prevent static buildup and damage from ESD, as well as physical damage from banging the nozzle into fragile devices, or scratching the motherboard. But the process is simple. With the computer powered down and unplugged, and with a soft brush in one hand and the vacuum nozzle in the other, extend a finger on your nozzle holding hand out past the tip of the nozzle and plant that finger on bare metal of the case. Then simply use the brush to sweep the dust into the vacuum. With your finger(s) touching metal, and your hand wrapped around the nozzle, no static can build up, no ESD damage can occur. Every time you reposition the nozzle, touch metal with an extended finger before moving in close.

Well, I for sure have a Capacitor issue. Not just a little, but a whole bunch. Wish I would have vacuumed it out sooner… Ok, so next step is to take the hard drive and install it to an enclosure. Is there a step by step anywhere on this? I have never done it before. With the motherboard is fried, what else can I salvage from it? I know I just put a new disc drive in it that I can take out. And I had to switch the phone jack thingys so I could run my phone and fax. And my memory card. Is there anything else that is worth keeping on it? Thanks y'all soooooooooooooo much. You guys ROCK!

Is there anything else that is worth keeping on it?

Depends on how old everything is and if you replace the motherboard with a like board or use this as an opportunity to upgrade to newer technology. If old, then not much is salvageable because new motherboards have different CPU sockets and use different type RAM and video cards, and even need bigger power supplies. If you can find an exact replacement board, it may be used and/or expensive.

BTW - although excessive heat can cause capacitor to fail, there is no way of telling if they would have started leaking if you had cleaned it. I keep my systems clean and I have had caps leak. Sadly, it was motherboard makers using inferior quality in most cases.