Help!!! (please)

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Beringer

I have had my Asus P4PE motherboard for about 1 year now.
Today, I returned home to hear my speakers popping and making all kinds of
noise, they were powered but my PC was off. Never heard that before so I
decided to turn on the PC and well, I can't.
During boot up, I get the nice little voice telling me "The CPU test
failed." This has me quite worried! I was using my PC just fine 12 hours
ago.
My PC is connected to a surge protector and I have cycled power on it, reset
it etc. Still get the same voice prompt.
So am I basically screwed and have to get a new CPU or is there something
else that may be happening here?

Thanks
Eric
 
Beringer said:
I have had my Asus P4PE motherboard for about 1 year now.
Today, I returned home to hear my speakers popping and making all
kinds of noise, they were powered but my PC was off.
Click to expand...

Was the PC off when you left it?

Is it possible that the fan on your CPU has stopped, or the heatsink isn't
properly on the CPU?

If the PC was of when you left, the popping speakers are a red herring. If
the PC was left on, maybe there's been a power surge (despite the surge
protector). Have their been power cuts where you are? Or lightning?

Good Luck

Martin



Never heard
 
I'm not aware of any power surges but I have to say that after leaving my
computer other items in my house haven't been working well either -
microwave, dryer and satellite TV reciever! Must of had a power surge.
About my PC now, It is behaving strangely. I have been able to boot it and
even get to bios screen or even windows boot screen however, it seems like
it just looses power and starts all over again, and again and again. I have
also recieved a message saying the system failed because of overclocking. I
have never messed with clock speeds.

I think I'm pretty much screwed!

Thanks
 
Ive had that happen quite often - sometimes I'll accidentally knock my tower
and the machine will reset and keep trying to reboot -which it cant - all
the while making popping sounds from the speakers. I just turn it off at the
PSU for 5 seconds or such and turn on the PSU, then switch on the machine.
Everything is fine.
 
"Beringer" said:
I'm not aware of any power surges but I have to say that after leaving my
computer other items in my house haven't been working well either -
microwave, dryer and satellite TV reciever! Must of had a power surge.
About my PC now, It is behaving strangely. I have been able to boot it and
even get to bios screen or even windows boot screen however, it seems like
it just looses power and starts all over again, and again and again. I have
also recieved a message saying the system failed because of overclocking. I
have never messed with clock speeds.

I think I'm pretty much screwed!

Thanks
Click to expand...

1) Open the computer case and visually examine the capacitors around
the processor area. These are the plastic sleeved cylinders and
there will be six or more of them. If the dome of any of these is
bulging or split, or if there is a brown stain from a liquid that
has leaked from the capacitors underneath them, then you have
bad capacitors and they will need to be replaced. This is a common
problem with a certain generation of Abit boards, but is much
less common with Asus.

2) The single most likely cause of a problem like this, is your power
supply has gone bad. Either test the supply in another computer,
or just try replacing it. Power supplies can fail, even without
having received a surge - they are, after all, under considerable
stress internally, compared to other electronics.

When a power supply fails, it can fail benignly (just stops making
output) or the failure can damage any load connected to the output
of the supply. You'll only know the failure type, after you
replace the supply. If your computer boots, then the power supply
must have failed "quietly". Otherwise, you'll have a lot of
debugging ahead of you.

Considering the relative dollar value of the power supply
versus other components in the computer, I would buy a spare
and not even connect the current supply to anything else you
value. Power supplies can be tested (I have some dummy loads
for testing, for example), but good high power resistors are
not a common item at Radio Shack.
I think I'm pretty much screwed!
Click to expand...
No, you're not :-) A new PS will fix it.

HTH,
Paul
 
The CPU may have failed but that is VERY rare. More likely that the
motherboard has failed.
 
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