Hey,

This morning my computer refused to fire up when I pressed the power button :(

On further inspection the motherboard seems to have power as a little green light is on, but I press the button and nothing.

The PSU is a Thermaltake 430w and is about 6 months old. Although it's not a super quality unit, I am doubting it's anything to do with that, afterall the motherboard light is on.

Other than that it's an ASUS P4PE with the usual bits and pieces attached to.

I'm kind of thinking that it might be the power switch itself but due to the design of the case it isn't really accessable to have a closer look.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to trouble shoot the problem?

Thanks

could be anything, could be the psu not delivering enough power and only delivering enough power to the motherboard light

i had the same problem on my p4pe turned out to be my antec psu rails frieing out

when my mobo was failing, it would do this;

to get it to pwoer up, i had to unplug the machine

pull hte main mobo molex out, and replug it in, and then turn it on and it would go good

I've pulled most cables out and plugged them back in, still no go.

EDIT: Well the plot thickens like well whipped cream. It just decided to turn itself on and she's away. Although the windows clock is wrong and has been the last few times I've turned it on.

And the PSU fan seems to be 'whirring' a little bit too much for my liking.

last edited by mission at 14:07:49 25/Aug/07

P4PE is ancient. Throw that dinosaur away and get a new machine.

If the clock etc has reset means the CMOS has been reset, you may have a flat battery. This shouldn't stop it powering on though.

Usually when it is this scenario with the P4P series mainboards (no turny on but power led is lit) the mainboard is rewted. Yours may be intermittent and heading towards never working again.

It is possible to be the PSU, simple, try another PSU if it does it again and see if its okay then.

P4PE is ancient. Throw that dinosaur away and get a new machine.

I now really only use my computer for internet, word, excel, digital pix, watching videos etc and MP3's. So although it's old, I'm not to sure what a new machine is really going to improve on?

I would try another PSU but that means going and buying one which I don't really want to do until I'm certain that's the problem.

Will a current motherboard fit in the same case that the P4PE does? Or does a new motherboard mean a new case aswell?

Then all I'd need is a new motherbaord, processor and RAM.

I had a look at Umart website but all those numbers and crap mean nothing to me...

If you want a basic system just pickup a cheap end AMD AM2 system. They are cheap as chips right now.

AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ CPU Retail - $99

ASUS AM2 M2N-MX SE Motherboard or Gigabyte AM2 GA-M61SME-S2 AM2 Motherboard - both $79

DDR2 1GB Generic 667MHz RAM - $59 each

Thermaltake XP550 NP 430 Watt ATX Power Supply OEM - $59


That is under $300 and will poop all over your current system.
Both those mainboards are also microatx so will fit into your case fine.

Only problem I can forsee is that all the new boards generally only come with 1 x IDE port so if you have more than 1 IDE HDD and ROM drive you are gonna have problems.

HDD's are so cheap these days just grab a SATA 160gig for $79 and you're set.

BTW all prices are from CA so it is entirely possible umart may have it for slightly less.

I don't buy from U-Mart, just use their website.

Will that upgrade go ok with games, provided I also get a decent video card? Are they PCI-E or AGP motherboards?

I only have one IDE HD and one DVD burner so I guess they'll both go in that ok (you can have 2 devices on the one IDE?). My other HD is SATA.

That's the same same as my current PSU, so I'll probably stick with that one.

Thanks for your help!

My p4pe died a few months back too :/
Just bought a cheap c2d and cheap mobo to replace it $~150ish, no games out at the time that warranted a full upgrade imo.

Will that upgrade go ok with games, provided I also get a decent video card? Are they PCI-E or AGP motherboards?

It would run okayish, if you want to play games too you might be better off spending a bit more on a midrange core2 setup.

They are both PCI-e boards, AGP is essentially dead.

(you can have 2 devices on the one IDE?)

Yup, a master and slave per cable.

That's the same same as my current PSU, so I'll probably stick with that one.

I'd wanna be damn sure the PSU isn't the faulty part before putting it in as the heart of a new system. Last thing you want is it feeding bad power to your new stuff and f***ing that up as well.

I would personally blame the mainboard myself. That's my guess, hence why I think throw it away, but the next down the line would be PSU. Unlikely the board would have been CMOS reset if the PSU had gone, as the battery on the MB would maintain those settings in normal circumstances. As such, I agree with rubba-chicken's idea of cheap AMD setup. It's inexpensive, if you're not playing the latest games heavily it'll do the trick quite well. And I also do recommend replacing the PSU if you're having issues and the PSU is over 3 years old. Better to be safe by spending a few bucks more, than to have the PSU die and potentially lose other parts in the upgraded system.

P4PE is ancient. Throw that dinosaur away and get a new machine.

my p4c800 still goes like the day I bought it.