overheating caused total power-out?

RavieRavie
edited February 2006 in Hardware
Right

My fan's been making some dodgy noises recently - it's been quite loud and it sounds quite rough. I was going to go and have it looked at but due to a variety of reasons I haven't managed yet.

Today I went to a lecture and left my computer on. When I got back the monitor still had power but the tower unit didn't. It's not turning on right now at all.

I'm guessing that I've overheated it, but I'm opening this up to see if there could be anything else.

I've had a look around the forum and with CPUs it seems to be saying that overheating them is more likely to cause memory problems or random reboots than a complete loss of power like this. Despite my concern about my fan, I haven't been experiencing any of the usual overheating problems.

I'm not ruling it out, but I'm looking at other things too. It sounds like it could be my motherboard that's overheated - this I don't know much about, although I'd imagine that it could cause these problems. The other thing I could think of would be my power unit itself.

I've tested the plug/power lead in case it was just a fuse or something, but it's fine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm actually living in university halls of residence just now in a pretty remote campus, and I don't have a car. As you can imagine I don't particuraly want to lug my computer into town on a bus. I also don't even have a screw driver here so I can't open it up until I visit home again or anything.

Just now I'm leaving it to cool, I'll try turning it on again in a few hours. and I'll get back to you after that.

Cheers in advance for any suggestions or help provided.

Comments

  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited February 2006
    If it won't turn on at all, I'd suspect the power supply. It is one of the more common components to die out. It should also have at least one fan in it, so it is possible that it was the one failing.

    If you have another PC or a friend willing to let you borrow their PSU for testing, that would be ideal. If it does turn out to the the PSU, be sure to buy a brand name replacement unit from Antec, Enermax, OCZ etc.
  • RavieRavie
    edited February 2006
    lemonlime wrote:
    If it won't turn on at all, I'd suspect the power supply. It is one of the more common components to die out. It should also have at least one fan in it, so it is possible that it was the one failing.

    If you have another PC or a friend willing to let you borrow their PSU for testing, that would be ideal. If it does turn out to the the PSU, be sure to buy a brand name replacement unit from Antec, Enermax, OCZ etc.

    first of all, thanks for replying

    Some good news: after leaving it about 3 hours I plugged everything back in again. It turned on! :clap:

    I done some more reading on the forum after I posted and I basically came to the conclussion that I'd need to buy a new PSU, and I was quite pleased when I realised they were relatively inexpensive.

    But yeah - it's up and going again.

    The fan still sounds rough as hell, but is IS spinning. Maybe it's one of my other fans, but the main one is going alright. As you say it could be the PSU fan that isn't working/working well, and I'll be investigating that as son as I get my hands on a screwdriver. (the worst part about living on campus when things like this come up)

    I've rearranged my room to give it more air, which isn't ideal, but anything to give it some air really.

    I'm so pleased right now. What a stressful day.

    If I discover that the PSU fan is busted, will I need to buy a new PSU, or can I simply replace the fan component?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2006
    As you pointed out, until you get hold of a screwdriver you won't know for sure, but I'd bet it's the PSU.

    Many PSU's have a built in thermal overload. If your PSU fan is going in and out on you it would cause exactly the problem you describe. The fact that it came back on after being off a while likely means that enough time had elapsed to allow the thermal protection to reset itself.

    You can replace a PSU fan, but bear in mind that there are some high voltage capacitors in there which literally can kill you. :eek: Caution is a must. :)
  • RavieRavie
    edited February 2006
    Right, thanks very much, that's very helpful

    I'll start looking around local shops for some price quotes and that, and I'll open my tower up as soon as I can.

    Thanks again :)
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Check out all of your fans.
    If the it is the psu fan then don't dick with it, repalce the psu.
    Often they start developing other 'issues' when the y overheat.
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