CNC pc red light and won't turn on!

[raynerd]

Hi guys, happy new year although not too happy for me! Promised I'd start my new project today while my wife went out for a couple of hours with the kids. Got down to the workshop, the  pc that runs all my CNC machine came on ok, accidentally I pressed reset button and pc rebooted... Stayed on for about 45 seconds and then just died. Since then, it won't boot up, just a red light on the normally green (on) or amber (booting) light comes up. If you open up the pc, powering on does kick the CPU fan and psu fan for about 3 seconds then dies. A green light stays on the motherboard.

Checked:
CPU fan and heat sink clean - reseated CPU.
Reseated memory
Checked Psu by unplugging, grounding green and loading 5v line and it is  giving steady 12v and 5v
Checked reset and power buttons - all ok.

Is there some sort of fuse anywhere? I can't see anything...

I'm gutted. :-(

What is the minim hardware I should be able to boot up on? Any other suggestions?

I'm not worried about the pc too much, just all my CNC settings that are not backed up.

Any thoughts??

Sorry, I know this isn't a pc forum but I tend to turn to you chaps first!

[awemawson]

Does the hard disk start up? If not, you're not going anywhere 

Andrew

[raynerd]

No, doesn't get anywhere near that. If I hadn't taken the side off the pc, it looks like it is dead! As it happens, with the side off, you can see the fan spin for about 2-3 seconds and then it just dies. However  a green light is on the motherboard all the time.

I think I'm going to remove the hd and see if I can boot it up on someone else's machine... See if I can at least recover some profiles.

[Fergus OMore]

Get the hard drive OUT.  I may know knowing about not a lot but you can buy another PC for peanuts but not the hard drive where ALL your stuff is.

Good luck

Norman

[John Rudd]

Most modern pcs send a power on signal to the psu, which in turn sets a power good signal back to the mobo


You can check the psu by grounding the power on signal at the main connector .....Google testing a PC power supply on how to....if the psu is good then it's mobo bye bye....hopefully it's just the psu that is goosed....good luck

[Pete.]

The fan spinning for a moment is normal. It does that until it gets a 'power good' from the CPU and if it doesn't get that or doesn't understand it (see below) then it shuts the PSU down.

Does it beep?
Does it put anything at all on the screen?
If the answer is no to both then it's not POSTing (Power On Self Test) which points at the CPU, motherboard or BIOS. If it was memory you'd get a load of beeping. There's a slim chance that pressing reset during POST might have corrupted the BIOS, some are recoverable others not (easily).

You'll have to tell us your motherboard type before we can help with that.

[Fergus OMore]

I did a 'Gumtree' for a PC tower a few minutes ago- All of £25 for one that is running OK.


It costs £50 from PC World to put a bloody awful Windows 8 back to Windows 7. No prizes for guessing!

[lordedmond]

pull the HDD and all other drives that are connected to the MB

it should post but complain that there are no drives , if it posts F1 or Del key to get to the bios ( been on macs for along time now but i think the key press is OK )

if it will not post there are only three things left

you have proven the PSU  so OK

bad CPU , bad RAM ( you should get a post beep error code ) and last a duff MB

But has as been said get that HDD out and do not fiddle with the PC with it in if it has data that you want on it

happy new year Chris  but it looks like a dead PC

my history with PC before I went mac started in the zilog z80 days

but I bet you know what my parting shot is to be

There are those that back up and those that will

Good luck and I hope your data is intact

Stuart

[kayz1]

What MB Chriss? i have a few in the cupboard here and CPU's old memory that sort of stuff from when i used to mend PC's for a mate.
 Lyn.

[Pete W.]

Hi there, Chris,

I'm sorry to hear of your problem - we have a saying in our household 'Computers are FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!'.

A word of caution - if it is the 'C' drive, containing the operating system (i.e. Windows), you can't just transfer a loaded hard drive from one computer to another.  The Windows installation process sort of tailors the operating system to that motherboard and that tailoring is further increased when the drivers are installed (i.e. chipset drivers, graphics and sound drivers, Ethernet driver etc., etc..

The following assumes that the hard drive in your poorly computer is OK.

In your situation, I'd remove the hard drive from the duff computer and either install it into an external hard drive enclosure with a USB interface or attach it to an external USB harness (they usually come with a PSU for the hard drive).  Power up another computer (the 'host' computer) with lots of hard drive space available, power up the 'refugee' hard drive and then connect the USB connection.  It might take a few minutes but eventually you should be able to see the 'refugee' hard drive in 'My Computer' on the host machine.  (Because the host machine was booted first, it will run from its own operating system and shouldn't get confused by the second operating system on the 'refugee' hard drive.)

You should now be able to see your CNC files and stuff and copy them (NOT the operating system files!!!) over to the 'host' computer hard drive for safe keeping.  You could also burn them onto a CD - this will facilitate getting them on to any new computer you get or build to replace the CNC machine.

If you now decide to build a new CNC machine, using the hard drive from the old CNC machine, the Windows installation process will include reformatting the drive.  You will also need to know the identity of your new motherboard so you can get and install the appropriate drivers.

An external hard drive or two can be extremely useful in all sorts of computer manoevres, not just for back-up.  So can an external harness or enclosure.  We often get asked to purge the hard drives from computers that friends are scrapping - I have software that REALLY, REALLY does wipe the hard drive and I run that with the subject hard drive attached to my computer via an external harness and USB adaptor.

My lovely but shy assistant is pretty fluent with Windows and used to rescue a lot of our friends from their computer problems.  She's trying to run down that activity now as we're both getting on a bit.  Still, if there's anything we could do, please feel free to PM me.

[David Jupp]

'Odd' PC failures I've experienced.

One supply rail of PC faulty - that one looked OK until drives started to spin up.  Cured by new PSU.  PSU must be able to provide enough current - presence of voltage alone does not gaurantee the PSU is OK.

Power Good signal from PSU lost - fixed by replacing PSU

Electrolytic Capacitors on MoBo died (look for swollen ends on them) - may get part way through boot, or even into Windows then freeze, gets worse and worse until no boot.  I've previously replaced MoBo using CPU & RAM form old board, but finding new board that is compatible get tricky with boards of any age.

Good luck

[Swarfing]

Chris i had the same problem back November, the problem was - switched on and used in a cold damp workshop, electronics heat up nicely and works fine. I switch off and go away where now condensation forms and you switch on again....Pop! Had same symptoms as you and it was the board, annoyed i was because it was a new board and built specifically for the machines like you. I found the same board on the bay and only cost me a fiver ;-)

PS

I lost my controller for the stepper drives as well

[Pete.]

Fastest way I've found to mess up a PC is use a hoover to clean it out. I've ruined two like that until I found out why.

[John Rudd]

 

Fastest way I've found to mess up a PC is use a hoover to clean it out. I've ruined two like that until I found out why.

So, what was the reason for their demise?

[raynerd]

Thanks for all the help chaps.

As I said, I totally unplugged the PSU, grounded the green and loaded 5v and the psu gave steady 5v and 12v and powered up my motor just fine... PSU is fine.

Removed the RAM, reseated it and tried 1 stick at a time... No issues there and besides I got no bleeps.

The MOBO is an intel job with built in graphics... So simply with mobo, psu and CPU connected, it still would not boot for more than a second (just a quick initial kick up of the CPU fan and then off immediately)... No beeps or anything. Based on what you guys have said and what other info I've got on the net, the fault has to be the mobo or CPU since they are the only things connected.

I removed the HDD today and took it to my cousins, we pulled his pc apart and attached mine. As it happens, my HDD was dual boot windows and Linux. Of course the windows partition would not boot up but I got into the Ubuntu partition just fine. From there I could access the windows partition where my Mach3 XML profile is as well has pulling off onto a pen drive some other stuff I would have been sad to lose.

I've also taken the old home pc to the workshop and have transferred all my data onto there. My mill is running but it needs some tweaking on the new machine. I'll crack on with it tomorrow as I've been out at hospital with grandad and then doing this all day. At least I can sleep easier knowing  I will hopefully get back to a working machine again.

I'm much happier now! Thanks again for your advice.

Chris

[Bluechip]

Fastest way I've found to mess up a PC is use a hoover to clean it out. I've ruined two like that until I found out why.

So, what was the reason for their demise?

Bit  but I suppose it's because you can get a very high electrostatic charge on the plastic nozzle. When I mill plastic and vaccy up, a lot of the bits jump onto the side of the thing rather than going up th'ole. I doubt if the bits were charged as they were sitting on the mill bed which is 'sort of' earthed. Presumably it's a tribo-electric effect as the bits go up the corrugated tubey thingy ????

Dave

[John Rudd]

Of course .... I should have known that

Off to kill myself......,

[Bluechip]

Off to kill myself......,

Not so fast, Young Sir. T'was only a wild guess from an aged  mind. ( Just loosening it up a bit with Glenmorangie. Seems to work better than Plus-Gas ...  )

Dave

[raynerd]

I'm guessing my initial Hoover when the issue first arose did not help matters :-) 

[Doc]

Is it a laptop?
I had that problem with my laptop and I found that the latch has a switch in it that got some debris in it and it was stuck don't know how that happened anyway cleaned it out and everything booted up and worked fine after.

[Pete.]

Bit  but I suppose it's because you can get a very high electrostatic charge on the plastic nozzle. When I mill plastic and vaccy up, a lot of the bits jump onto the side of the thing rather than going up th'ole. I doubt if the bits were charged as they were sitting on the mill bed which is 'sort of' earthed. Presumably it's a tribo-electric effect as the bits go up the corrugated tubey thingy ????

Dave

Yup, static from the nozzle. I trashed a (back then) very expensive video card and some RAM by simply hoovering the dust off them.

[awemawson]

I've always blown PC cases out with an airline and todate not been aware of creating any problems. Just take it outside the workshop door and blow the spiders out.

Andrew

[mattinker]

Airlines can give you damp problems.

Regards, Matthew

[Stilldrillin]

I've always blown PC cases out with an airline and todate not been aware of creating any problems. Just take it outside the workshop door and blow the spiders out.

Andrew

Fed up with the laptop fan, constantly howling at full stretch. I've recently risked blowing through the cooling slots, with the shop airline....... 

It's working quietly/ properly now. 

David D

[Pete.]

Yup I blow mine out with an airline too. Even on a wet day I've had no problems.