Wierd Power Issue on an HP Desktop

[Tech2862]

So a friend of mine has asked me to take a look at his PC for him. It is a store bought (blah) HP Media Center 8000, which he says is about 2 years old. I consider myself to be fairly savvy in the world of computers but this issue is new to me. Let me get to it already. When I first turned the PC on it showed the HP "splash" screen then acted like it was going to boot from the hard drive, but instead turn itself off. So I push the power button again, this time it only gets to the HP screen before shutting down again. I repeat this 2-3 more time with the same result every time: about 5-10 sec of on time then poof.

I opened the case and took the time to clear out all of the dust that had built up over those 2 years. I also re-seated all cables, cards, and memory. Then I unplugged the machine and held the power button for 5-10 sec (this is a power reset described on the HP site) and plugged it back in ensuring that the power supply was set to the proper 115V. Then I turned the computer back on and went into the setup to ensure that all of the settings were correct. It let me get into the setup, but I was only there about 15-20 seconds before the power went out again. Trying to turn it back on only resulted in the power dying even quicker each time.

I am thinking that it may be the power supply? Possibly the MoBo has died due to the crazy amount of dust that was in that thing.

He said that this problem gradually got worse and worse. He and his wife had issues with it coming out of sleep mode and the only way to "reset" it was to unplug it. So the thought crossed my mind that maybe one to many unplugs fried the MoBo.

Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

[abb1]

The first and easiest thing to test is the power supply. Just switch it with one in your computer to see if it still acts the same. If it does then I would say the culprit is the motherboard. I have seen this issue once with a defective motherboard. If it is the motherboard, then the system is toast as it would cost more to fix it than the system is worth, and you can only put an HP motherboard into the system as the case connectors are paired with the HP motherboard

[mmettin]

Originally Posted by Tech2862

So a friend of mine has asked me to take a look at his PC for him. It is a store bought (blah) HP Media Center 8000, which he says is about 2 years old. I consider myself to be fairly savvy in the world of computers but this issue is new to me. Let me get to it already. When I first turned the PC on it showed the HP "splash" screen then acted like it was going to boot from the hard drive, but instead turn itself off. So I push the power button again, this time it only gets to the HP screen before shutting down again. I repeat this 2-3 more time with the same result every time: about 5-10 sec of on time then poof.

I opened the case and took the time to clear out all of the dust that had built up over those 2 years. I also re-seated all cables, cards, and memory. Then I unplugged the machine and held the power button for 5-10 sec (this is a power reset described on the HP site) and plugged it back in ensuring that the power supply was set to the proper 115V. Then I turned the computer back on and went into the setup to ensure that all of the settings were correct. It let me get into the setup, but I was only there about 15-20 seconds before the power went out again. Trying to turn it back on only resulted in the power dying even quicker each time.

I am thinking that it may be the power supply? Possibly the MoBo has died due to the crazy amount of dust that was in that thing.

He said that this problem gradually got worse and worse. He and his wife had issues with it coming out of sleep mode and the only way to "reset" it was to unplug it. So the thought crossed my mind that maybe one to many unplugs fried the MoBo.

Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

Are all the fans spinning?

A cpu fan not spinning would force a shutdown @ a specific temperature


Just a thought

[Tech2862]

Originally Posted by abb1

The first and easiest thing to test is the power supply. Just switch it with one in your computer to see if it still acts the same. If it does then I would say the culprit is the motherboard. I have seen this issue once with a defective motherboard. If it is the motherboard, then the system is toast as it would cost more to fix it than the system is worth, and you can only put an HP motherboard into the system as the case connectors are paired with the HP motherboard

I have been hesitant about switching out the power supply, only because the HP case is tiny and a real pain in the butt to move stuff around in. I really think that it is the motherboard as well. I suppose just to make sure I will swap out power supplies. Thanks. I also checked the CMOS battery and it tested fine with a multimeter.

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MMETTIN: All the fans are spinning. They had a ton of dust and gunk on them so they may not have been spinning at full speed before I cleaned everything out. The amount of dust and build up in this machine is what I think the COD is really. The thing had to have been getting super hot and therefore frying something on the motherboard. Kapoof!

Thank you both for the input. I will give my friend the bad news after a power supply swap.