Greetings,

My PC hasn't been working for nearly a month and I've gone through quite a bit of hassle trying to get it up and running again. A few friends on MSN have been advising me on what may be wrong and how to repair it, but I think getting some more opinions will do me some good. I'll try explaining what exactly went wrong and what I've done so far to fix it, and hopefully we can take it from there.

I was waiting in the server queue for the Aion Online early entry when my PC suddenly froze. A few minutes before this I smelled something burning but didn't really make much of it. I hit the hard reset button and my PC powered off completely, then would not power back on. The closest I could get it to powering on was waiting about ten minutes and hitting the power button, which made the LEDs and the fans activate for half a second before it went completely dead again.

I am not very experienced with PC hardware but with some advice from friends I managed to built my PC on my own. I asked the same friends to advice me on how to fix this problem and they said it is most likely the PSU, Mobo or CPU. I have purchased a brand new PSU and yet the problem remained. I also purchased a brand new Mobo, and still nothing has changed. This leaves the CPU to be replaced, which will be costly compared to the PSU/Mobo replacements. I've yet to buy a replacement CPU since I didn't want to spend roughly £150 without getting some feedback from you guys first.

My friend said it's unlikely that the video card or RAM is the cause of this issue because you don't need a video card to power the PC on and if the RAM was dead then the PC would make a beeping sound at the very least, which it doesn't do. So what I would like to know is what you guys think is the most probable piece of hardware that needs replacing, do you think the CPU is the only piece left that hasn't been addressed or am I missing something else?

I hope this information is enough to get the ball rolling, and I would greatly appreciate any advice to help me resolve this issue ASAP. I'm using a Netbook in the meantime and it feels as though I'm back in the stone age already.

Hi to PCHF with the new PSU and mainboard and CPU attached do you get any beep codes at all?

No beeps at all. Just like when the PC first died, it simply powers on the LEDs and fans for half a second before completely turning off without any sounds. Replacing the PSU and CPU did not change the result in any noticeable way unfortunately.

Sounds like you have a short on one of your connections, probably the power button or the reset button on the mobo. You might want to double check them and see if they are shorting out. It's possible that you might've plugged them in wrong on the mobo and thus you get the short. Just double check all of your connections that go to the front panel.

*JM*

This is a new suggestion, however I am not sure if it will solve my problem. The PC had been working fine for over a year before it died, and I did not touch the cables that lead from the case to the mobo since the day I built the whole thing. If they were plugged incorrectly then this issue would have begun from day one, rather than emerging a year later, no? Although I'm not very experienced with the inner workings of a computer, I am somewhat confident the wires for the power and reset buttons on my case are plugged into the correct slot on the motherboard upon re-checking it just now.

Have you ever tried replacing the thermal paste under the CPU and heatsink?

*JM*

Although this was not a priority at first, I decided to replace the thermal paste when I eventually had to remove the CPU to fit onto my new motherboard.