Thread: Head-Scratcher
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Old April 13th 18, 03:06 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
Bill Anderson
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Default Head-Scratcher

On 4/12/2018 4:06 PM, Paul wrote:
Bill Anderson wrote:
Golly this group has gone quiet lately.Â* This has always been my go-to
place for help with my computers, but now...Paul, are you still here?

About three years ago I built a desktop machine around an old Asus P5Q
Pro Turbo MBO I had lying around and donated it to a local nonprofit.
I set it up with Win10 and two accounts -- an administrator account I
use as a volunteer to reproduce their CDs and DVDs and to print their
photos on a large-format printer, and a guest account anybody can use
when I'm not around, which is most of the time.Â* I think it's seldom
used that way, but who knows?Â* I'm not around most of the time.

The computer has been working fine since 2015, but the other day I was
hoping to burn some CDs on it and the computer's power kept cutting
out. Â*I couldn't get it to power up at all at first, so I fiddled with
the power button and the power cord and power supply switch and
plugged and unplugged and suddenly it started.Â* And as Win10 was
loading, the power cut off.Â* Then back on, thenÂ* off...so I brought
the thing home to work on it.

At first it powered right up, then the power cut off.Â* And then I
noticed the case power button was sitting cockeyed...aha!Â* So I
fiddled with it for a minute and the power came on and voila!Â* Problem
solved. Or so I thought...because the weirdnesses continued.

As long as I had the thing at home I figured I ought to go ahead and
update the OS to the latest version as Win10 kept nagging me to do, so
off to the races I went, only to be told after an inordinately long (I
thought) download and update process, Win10 reverted to its older
version with an apology that the update had failed.

So I tried again and after a few hours I got the same Windows apology.
Just for the heck of it, I ran a Memcheck test and found no problems
on 32 gigabytes of RAM.

All right, but before I tried anything else I figured I'd better back
up what I had.Â* Since I would be backing up a C: drive, I plugged a
spare SATA drive onto the MBO (to hold the backup) and booted from my
Acronis True Image 2014 boot disk.Â* Didn't boot Windows--booted from
CD and so far, so good.Â* But after setting up the backup parameters
and starting the backup process, just as files began copying -- snap,
the computer power went off. Dead.Â* Just like that.

But the case power button turned things back on and I tried again and
at exactly the same point in the backup process...snap, the power went
off again.Â* It was a sudden total shutdown with no warning.

So...desperate for a backup now, I booted into Win10 and just copied
all my important files onto that backup drive, and with them safely
stored away I re-installed Win10 on the computer.Â* It was a fresh
install on the original hard drive, with the old partitions deleted --
nothing left over on the hard drive.

And Win10 (ver. 1709) installed in a breeze and I copied all my
important files back onto it and I began installing all the programs I
needed and they installed without a hitch and things were going great
last night when I shut it all down to go to bed and pick up this
morning where I left off.Â* Just a few more programs to get right, and
I can take this thing back to the nonprofit.

And then this morning when I booted the computer by pressing the
spacebar (I did NOT touch that power button) the power came on for at
most a second and a half, then went off.Â* And as I stood there looking
at it, the power came on again, then off. And again and again and
again...this wasn't going to stop.Â* Just cycling on/off/on/off.Â* So I
pushed the power button and held it in and soon the cycling stopped
with power off.Â* Then I pushed the button again and the power came on
and the cycling started again.Â* Pushed the button...power went off.
Pushed the button, power came on and stayed on.Â* And it has remained
on with no problems at all for about the past hour.

So what's the problem? Can't be Win10 as the power cycling is taking
place well before the computer even posts.Â* Case power button?Â* I no
longer think so, as it was untouched after shutdown last night and
power up this morning.Â* I used the Asus boot with spacebar feature in
BIOS...not that button.Â* Motherboard?Â* Possibly.Â* Loose cable?
Possibly, though I've checked connections throughout the system.
Power supply? Probably, I guess, though that computer is running
steadily over there right now with no apparent issues at all.

I suppose I'll try to track down a power supply in town today, though
things like that are getting harder to find locally these days.Â* I may
have to use Newegg or Amazon.Â* But I'd hate to buy a new power supply
only to learn it was something else.

Ideas?Â* Ever experienced anything like this yourself?


In a traditional era, computers had two buttons on the front.

A NO (Normally Open) RESET button which momentarily closes.
A NO (Normally Open) POWER button which momentarily closes.

In an emergency, you can go to the PANEL header, remove the
two wires of the POWER button and move the RESET button wires to
where the POWER button would normally go.

Then, use the RESET button to start the machine. (Leaving
you for the moment, with no functional RESET button.)

Alternately, if you keep a couple spare normally open switches
with twisted wire pair on hand, you can plug one of those in,
to take the place of the POWER button.

This covers cases where the POWER button got crushed.

You can also start or reset a motherboard, by removing the
sets of wires, and using a screwdriver tip, *but* that takes
a steady hand and very good eyesight. It's fine to be
doing that if a motherboard is sitting flat on your bench
for testing. Not a good idea if the motherboard remains
inside the case. Too hard to see in there.

*******

THERMTRIP will turn off the power. I don't think it's supposed
to turn on like that again right after a THERMTRIP event. It
should take a button push.

However, there is a BIOS setting on some machines, which "restores
power state to previous" after a power loss. Perhaps the restored
power after an event, is caused by the choice of BIOS setting.
I usually leave my machine set to "remain OFF after power is
restored".

If the motherboard VCore that powers the processor trips on
OCP (over current), the motherboard should definitely stay
off until you turn the power switch on the back to OFF for
30 seconds, then turn it ON again.Â* And then the front power
button will attempt to work again. Those don't seem to trigger
all that often. A "famous" one used to trip, when a certain
motherboard model was combined with a certain Antec with
"slow" 12V power rail. But other than that, the motherboard
is just as likely to "char" all around the socket, as it is
to properly shut down on a VCore short.

Don't forget to inspect for bad caps. Asus is not known for
epidemic proportions on those, but it still happens in a
small percentage of cases. As a counterpoint, there was one
Dell machine, where the motherboard was virtually guaranteed
to fail (getting close to 100% failure rate after a number of
years). And for a situation like that, it's not even safe
to get a used motherboard off Ebay (at least, unless the seller
claims it's been re-capped, which would add $50 or more
to the price in effect). Use the "normal level of suspicion"
about electrolytic caps (the ones with the "X" or "K" cut in the
top). The polymer caps with the "solid dome" and no X or K,
don't have quite the same failure modes.

*******

You can look through the posts in the VIP forum for evidence
of a "themed failure".

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...nguag e=en-us


Â*Â* Paul


Thanks for the ideas, Paul. I've ordered a new PS from Amazon --
nothing too expensive, not a PC Power and Cooling model, but something
more suited for the MBO than what I have in it now. The P5Q Pro Turbo
has an 8-pin 12v socket which is only half used by the current PS, which
has only a 4-pin 12v plug. But it worked when I first tried it in 2013
and it's worked ever since, so I haven't worried about the empty spots
on the socket. But I figured if I were going to get a new PS I might as
well get 8 pins.

It was the way it was behaving this morning that persuaded me the case
power button wasn't the culprit. No amount of tapping around the button
can set off the problem. In fact, I have no idea how to duplicate the
problem. But I suppose if I install a new PS and the problem recurs,
I'll be looking at that button next. And this not being the good old
traditional days, there is no "reset" button on the case.

In fact, the computer has been running basically nonstop all day today
and after the initial misbehavior this morning, I've had no power
problems whatsoever.

I did manage to get the fresh new Win10 installation backed up today
using my Acronis boot disk. There were no problems at all with that
today. If it was the contents of the HDD I was backing up yesterday
that was causing the power to die during a backup, well, clearly I know
a lot less about how all this works than I thought I did. Why would
Acronis True Image care what 0s and 1s it was backing up? Makes no
sense to me still, but the backup ran fine this afternoon so I guess I
should just be happy.

I don't see any swollen caps, and I couldn't find anything in BIOS
regarding restarts after power failure. So I'm setting it all aside now
that it's backed up, and I'll wait for Amazon Prime to deliver the new
PS on Monday. I'll come back here to report the results. Many thanks
as always.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog