HTPC won't boot anymore
#1
Sad 
Hi guys need some help,
I was playing mafia 2 on my recently built htpc (that's been running fine for the past month) today I left it and came back an hour later and it had turned itself off and now won't power on. My PSU has a green LED on it and then when I press the power button the CPU cooler runs for a split second and then LED on the PSU goes off and nothing else happens. I've listed my spec below:

Case: Steacom F7C EVO Home Theatre Chassis £72
CPU: AMD A10-5700 £91
Mobo: AsRock FM2A75M-ITX Motherboard £73
CPU Cooler: Gelid CC-SSilence-AM2 CPU Cooler £20
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8-1800 Case Fan £11
PSU: 12V 160W PicoPSU-160-XT + FSP 12V 12.5A 192W AC/DC Adapter £72
Memory: 8gb Kingston HyperX 1866
Hard drive: 120gb Samsung 840 Pro SSD

If anyone has any suggestions please let me know
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#2
Sounds like a bad power supply. Do you have another one (even an old one out of an old PC) to test with?
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#3
No unfortunately not I found something similar out of a bundle of power cables that I have but that didn't work either although I'm not sure that it should. Is there any other way to test if it's the power supply?
If not I'll have to order another one
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#4
Do you have another PC where you can test the Pico-PSU and power brick to see if they work?
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#5
(2013-02-17, 02:49)Sozzler Wrote: No unfortunately not I found something similar out of a bundle of power cables that I have but that didn't work either although I'm not sure that it should. Is there any other way to test if it's the power supply?
If not I'll have to order another one

First check to see that you've got 12V DC coming out of your power supply brick. If so, disconnect the power supply header cable from your motherboard, jumper the PS-ON pin to ground (a bent paperclip works well for this) and check for 3.3V, 5V and 12V to ground on the appropriate pins. PS-ON is pin 16 and normally has a green wire but since you won't find this wire on your Pico be sure to Google for a picture of the correct pin to jumper. You'll need a DC voltmeter but it's all low voltage so you don't need to worry about getting a shock. Doing this can diagnose if a component on the motherboard connector has failed completely - it may not tell you if the brick is failing since the PS might be able to put out 12V without a load applied. Good luck!
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#6
(2013-02-17, 04:13)artrafael Wrote: Do you have another PC where you can test the Pico-PSU and power brick to see if they work?

No however I found network switch that had the same power input and when I plugged in my power supply it just tripped and the green LED went off again, so to me this would mean that it's the external power brick that's failing.

(2013-02-17, 06:53)Rick P. Wrote: First check to see that you've got 12V DC coming out of your power supply brick. If so, disconnect the power supply header cable from your motherboard, jumper the PS-ON pin to ground (a bent paperclip works well for this) and check for 3.3V, 5V and 12V to ground on the appropriate pins. PS-ON is pin 16 and normally has a green wire but since you won't find this wire on your Pico be sure to Google for a picture of the correct pin to jumper. You'll need a DC voltmeter but it's all low voltage so you don't need to worry about getting a shock. Doing this can diagnose if a component on the motherboard connector has failed completely - it may not tell you if the brick is failing since the PS might be able to put out 12V without a load applied. Good luck!

Not sure if I followed this correctly but I unplugged the 24 pin connecter from the motherboard along with one other connection and connected the ground to PS-ON with a paperclip. When I turned on the power supply the connected case fan powered up like normal, I'm not exactly sure what this tells me though?
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#7
From what you've written it looks like your brick is on it's way out. Looks like it's able to provide 12V when essentially unloaded (your case fan) but not able to deliver much current.
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#8
yeah well, best way to check this out is by having a PSU tester at hand which are very chesp to buy http://goo.gl/rKAHq
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#9
The ASRock FM2A75M-ITX can behave very strange with regards to power supplies. What you're describing happen to almost every single customer I had with this board. It would run for a week or a couple of days and then no more power on. Most of the time it'd fried the power board or, though this didn't happen to my customers, fry itself (VRMs catching on fire). Check your motherboard and make sure the VRMs have not melted.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1337304/asroc...board-fire

If you can, return the FM2A75M-ITX and get a different motherboard. The FM2A85M-ITX is supposed to be better and not have the power/VRM problems of the A75. If it's dead, according to the thread I linked ASRock EU does a pretty good job with the RMAs.

+1 on the PSU tester. Best $15 I ever spent on a tool.
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#10
(2013-02-18, 13:03)eskro Wrote: yeah well, best way to check this out is by having a PSU tester at hand which are very chesp to buy http://goo.gl/rKAHq

Thanks, ordered one

(2013-02-18, 15:25)Dougie Fresh Wrote: The ASRock FM2A75M-ITX can behave very strange with regards to power supplies. What you're describing happen to almost every single customer I had with this board. It would run for a week or a couple of days and then no more power on. Most of the time it'd fried the power board or, though this didn't happen to my customers, fry itself (VRMs catching on fire). Check your motherboard and make sure the VRMs have not melted.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1337304/asroc...board-fire

If you can, return the FM2A75M-ITX and get a different motherboard. The FM2A85M-ITX is supposed to be better and not have the power/VRM problems of the A75. If it's dead, according to the thread I linked ASRock EU does a pretty good job with the RMAs.

+1 on the PSU tester. Best $15 I ever spent on a tool.

I'll have a look when I get home tonight and post on here, I hadn't noticed anything like the pics in your link but I'll double check
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#11
Had a look at the motherboard and all looks ok so I'll just wait for the PSU tester and see what that says
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#12
Ok so the PSU tester arrived and all the LEDs lit up when I plugged it in appart from the -5v, but I believe this mean the PSU is ok?

So what else could it be? I guess the motherboard is the most likely but is there anyway to test it?

Also if it is the motherboard is it likely to have fried the CPU as well?

Any help would be appreciated because I'm a bit stuck at the minute
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#13
From Wikipedia: "A −5 V output was originally required because it was supplied on the ISA bus, but it became obsolete with the removal of the ISA bus in modern PCs and has been removed in later versions of the ATX standard."

Probably the tester just has that -5V for legacy power supplies.

Anyway, all a PSU tester can really tell you is if the PSU is dead. It's not dead but there could still be some issue with it though it's less likely now.
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#14
Thought I should post an update:

I did some more testing and narrowed it down to the motherboard, so ordered the FM2A85M-ITX as a replacement, it arrived yesterday and everything has been working since then Smile

Thanks for the help in finding the problem still not 100% what caused it but hopefully it won't happen again.
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#15
The cause was the FM2A75M-ITX motherboard is terrible and never should have been released. You're lucky you could get the A85X version. I am stuck with brand new FM2A75M-ITX motherboards in the boxes that I cannot dare use. Thanks ASRock.
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