Tendo City

Gah, I'd had this problem a few weeks ago, but then it went away so I was hoping that it wouldn't come back... but now it's back, and it's as horribly, incredibly frustrating as ever.

Essentially, my new computer won't turn on sometimes. Oh, it powers on, all the fans and lights and such power up, the CD works if I press the button... but it doesn't get beyond that and boot, and the monitor stays in 'standby' mode, the yellow light, blinking, whatever (depending on monitor).

I think there's some kind of power or electric problem, that hopefully isn't so bad it can't be fixed, because sometimes a few weeks ago when it was last doing this I managed to get it working by plugging in and unplugging some speakers from the sound card, or plugging the speakers into other ports on the sound card. Also, the one time (then) that I tried running the system without the sound card in I think it booted. Or sometimes it just randomly starts this time, while the previous time it wouldn't. It makes no sense.

So, is it a power problem or something, or is my sound card (a Soundblaster X-Fi) going bad? The latter would be pretty annoying, the only other soundcards I've got are definitely inferior Soundblaster Live!s. :(


In case you're wondering I'm posting this from my older computer, which works as well as it has for many years now, but is frustrating because of its age and because of how often it crashes. I need my newer computer working more reliably.

I mean, the computer does turn on some of the time. This problem does not happen every time, obviously, as I've said such as how it went away for a few weeks, but now happened again). But I really need to figure out what is wrong here, just saying "oh well it'll fix itself/it's not too bad as long as I can eventually get it to start up somehow" isn't the best attitude, I think. :)

I don't even use a sound card, don't need one.

Unfortunately, not everybody is as awesome at being deaf as GR. :(

It's not like we're living in the bad old days where the only sound a motherboard could produce was a piercing screech. Unless you've got some kind of 5.1 setup, you'll never need a sound card.

If you're deaf, you'll also never need a sound card. Stop making me explain my jokes.

Great Rumbler Wrote:It's not like we're living in the bad old days where the only sound a motherboard could produce was a piercing screech. Unless you've got some kind of 5.1 setup, you'll never need a sound card.

How can you bear the computer with no sound? That means no YouTube, or Hulu, or music.. Seriously why have a computer if you cant do those things.

etoven Wrote:How can you bear the computer with no sound? That means no YouTube, or Hulu, or music.. Seriously why have a computer if you cant do those things.

Err...you don't need a sound card for sound.

Great Rumbler Wrote:Err...you don't need a sound card for sound.

I think thats where you had me and ryan confused.. Onboard sound from your motherboard still comes from a device called a sound card.

Yep, it's just that it sucks. An SBLive equivalent isn't exactly a great source of multi-channel sound. It's true that modern operating systems like Windows 7 can do software based sound (just needing some sort of speaker output and a decent processor), but hardware accelerated sound takes a lot of the burden from the processor, and that's a good thing to have.

etoven Wrote:I think thats where you had me and ryan confused.. Onboard sound from your motherboard still comes from a device called a sound card.

But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an actual soundcard, separate from the motherboard.

This is what I was responding to:

Quote:So, is it a power problem or something, or is my sound card (a Soundblaster X-Fi) going bad? The latter would be pretty annoying, the only other soundcards I've got are definitely inferior Soundblaster Live!s.

Motherboard audio is bad compared to sound card audio. It uses processor power too, so you will get better performance with a real sound card.

It's nice to have if you've got the extra money, but you can play games and use your computer just fine without one.

True, but honestly I don't think a bad sound card would prevent the system from even powering up.

The big 3 for something like that is: motherboard, power supply, and CPU. Modern computers will at least give an error beep if the RAM is no good. If you can double check those things, then that should solve the issue. I guess I should ask how far the startup process normally goes when it fails to startup. Does it fail to power up entirely?

Dark Jaguar Wrote:True, but honestly I don't think a bad sound card would prevent the system from even powering up.

The big 3 for something like that is: motherboard, power supply, and CPU. Modern computers will at least give an error beep if the RAM is no good. If you can double check those things, then that should solve the issue. I guess I should ask how far the startup process normally goes when it fails to startup. Does it fail to power up entirely?

In my A+ training class we troubled shooted problems including PCI cards causing computers not to boot up. When the computers starts up the first thing it does, even before the monitor is given power is it runs a process called POST (Power On Self Test) Which is basically a hardware diagnostic, if a PCI card fails post, the monitor will remain blank and the system enters a halt mode. Exactly as Black Falcon describes. It's also noteworthy ABF that a loose PCI, or PCI express card can cause a POST failure. You did say that when you remove the sound card you dont have a issue? Try removing the sound card, and both blowing out your expansion slot, and then cleaning the terminals on your expansion card. Finally reseat the card in the expansion shot, making sure that the screw that holds the card in the bay is good and tight, and that card is all the way in the slot.


Finally if that doesn't work, you may have a issue where the computer has suddenly decided to assign the card a bad IRQ which can also cause a POST failure, moving the card to a different slot usually fixes this problem.

EDIT:
This also might be helpful...
The Comptea process for trouble shooting POST problems:

I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's guaranteed to track down the issue.

Disconnect all drives and remove all PCI cards. Next remove the RAM from the computer. Install one stick of RAM and power on the computer. If that works, install another stick and so on. If all the ram sticks check out, next start adding expansion cards to the system one at a time testing a power on. Finally add the drives back one at a time until the problem is reproduced. Soon you will discover your culprit.

BTW, in case it needs saying....
1) Always ground yourself when inserting and removing expansion cards.
2) After removing a card or ram, store it on a static free service (Never place it on carpet)

etoven Wrote:[ color=#FFFFFF ][/color]

[ color=#FFFFFF ]I think thats where you had me and ryan confused.. Onboard sound from your motherboard still comes from a device called a sound card.[ /color ]

I knew precisely what he was talking about. I was joking about deaf people not needing . . .

You know what? Fuck it. I'm not explaining this joke a second time. :FuckYou:

Dark Jaguar Wrote:The big 3 for something like that is: motherboard, power supply, and CPU. Modern computers will at least give an error beep if the RAM is no good. If you can double check those things, then that should solve the issue. I guess I should ask how far the startup process normally goes when it fails to startup. Does it fail to power up entirely?

I already said. It doesn't even start, as far as I can tell. The computer powers on, but the monitor never enables when this problem hits, so I never even see the BIOS/motherboard boot screen, much less anything beyond that. The monitor just sits there blinking in "I'm not receiving any picture" mode, like when the computer is in sleep mode or something.

If it gets far enough for the monitor to engage and go to a solid green light instead of blinking (or yellow, for the other monitor I've got here, same thing), it's going to be fine, usually.

There were some times a few weeks ago when, as I said, it'd reset when I plugged things into or out of the sound card, etc, so it's not 100% when it actually starts... but if it starts and I don't touch anything it seems to work.

But yeah, I really want to figure out why this is happening.

Great Rumbler Wrote:It's nice to have if you've got the extra money, but you can play games and use your computer just fine without one.

While my motherboard has some audio jacks so I assume it's got some kind of onboard audio, they don't work and never have, so even if I did want to give up on having high quality audio, EAX/ALchemy, sound that doesn't use CPU resources, and more -- and I definitely do not -- as far as I know those ports don't do anything anyway. I don't know if they'd suddenly start working if I removed the sound card, but as I don't want to do that, I don't really care to find out.

Sound cards may be slightly less important than graphics cards are, but both are still very useful, important things to have for PC gamers...

Weltall Wrote:I knew precisely what he was talking about. I was joking about deaf people not needing . . .

You know what? Fuck it. I'm not explaining this joke a second time. :FuckYou:

I got your joke, not bad... GR is just trying to be difficult and justify why he doesn't have a sound card, I think. :)

etoven Wrote:Disconnect all drives and remove all PCI cards. Next remove the RAM from the computer. Install one stick of RAM and power on the computer. If that works, install another stick and so on. If all the ram sticks check out, next start adding expansion cards to the system one at a time testing a power on. Finally add the drives back one at a time until the problem is reproduced. Soon you will discover your culprit.

The only cards are the video card and the sound card. Considering that without having video plugged in I can't tell whether the computer is working or not (looking at the box it seems to be powered on either way, after all), unplugging that seems like it'd be thoroughly counter-productive... it's not like there's any other way of getting video output.

As for the sound card, I did try it without that a few weeks ago, and yes it did work that time while it'd been having a lot of problems otherwise, so I do wonder if it's bad. I'm not sure how to test it though, because of how sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. As I've been saying it makes me wonder if something's touching where it shouldn't be or something, if it's not just the sound card (why would touching the back reset the computer? That is not right!), but I don't know how to test for that myself.

A Black Falcon Wrote:I already said. It doesn't even start, as far as I can tell. The computer powers on, but the monitor never enables when this problem hits, so I never even see the BIOS/motherboard boot screen, much less anything beyond that. The monitor just sits there blinking in "I'm not receiving any picture" mode, like when the computer is in sleep mode or something.

If it gets far enough for the monitor to engage and go to a solid green light instead of blinking (or yellow, for the other monitor I've got here, same thing), it's going to be fine, usually.

There were some times a few weeks ago when, as I said, it'd reset when I plugged things into or out of the sound card, etc, so it's not 100% when it actually starts... but if it starts and I don't touch anything it seems to work.

But yeah, I really want to figure out why this is happening.



While my motherboard has some audio jacks so I assume it's got some kind of onboard audio, they don't work and never have, so even if I did want to give up on having high quality audio, EAX/ALchemy, sound that doesn't use CPU resources, and more -- and I definitely do not -- as far as I know those ports don't do anything anyway. I don't know if they'd suddenly start working if I removed the sound card, but as I don't want to do that, I don't really care to find out.

Sound cards may be slightly less important than graphics cards are, but both are still very useful, important things to have for PC gamers...



I got your joke, not bad... GR is just trying to be difficult and justify why he doesn't have a sound card, I think. :)



The only cards are the video card and the sound card. Considering that without having video plugged in I can't tell whether the computer is working or not (looking at the box it seems to be powered on either way, after all), unplugging that seems like it'd be thoroughly counter-productive... it's not like there's any other way of getting video output.

As for the sound card, I did try it without that a few weeks ago, and yes it did work that time while it'd been having a lot of problems otherwise, so I do wonder if it's bad. I'm not sure how to test it though, because of how sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. As I've been saying it makes me wonder if something's touching where it shouldn't be or something, if it's not just the sound card (why would touching the back reset the computer? That is not right!), but I don't know how to test for that myself.

You should try moving it to a empty expansion slot.. As I said before it could be a IRQ conflict causing post to fail, or simply one of your expansion slots could have gone bad, if you empty the slot, most motherboards will disable it during post and your computer should then be able to boot up. Also check to make sure the card is seated properly and the the screw that holds the card in place is tight.
Also, if you don't have on board video you can still use the Comptea process to trouble shoot post problems.. It just takes a little deductive reasoning..

Remove the ram all but one stick and keep the video card in the computer as well as disconnect all the drive. If the computer POSTS then you know the video card is fine as well as that stick of ram. If the computer doesn't POST it's either the video card or that ram stick.. So you need to swap out that RAM stick for another one (repeat with all sticks) If your computer fails to post after trying all the sticks chances are you have a bad video card. If the computer wont post with a particular stick of RAM installed but will with another stick, then that stick of RAM is the problem. Next one at a time reattach the drives. Repeat process. Finally install the sound card. This should help you track down the problem.



I suspect the problem is not the power supply because you mentioned that the CD drive is functional. Which means the that the power supply is being switch to a full voltage state by the mother board. Which if the power supply where bad it usually sends out irregular voltage during its standby state, in which case most motherboards will not bring the power supply to full power if that where the case.
Finally check your power supply connections. Particularly the one connection near your processor. Also, there also should be one or two more that power the motherboard and possibly the video card, (if it uses crossfire support)

Quote:GR is just trying to be difficult and justify why he doesn't have a sound card, I think.

What's there to justify?

Because having a sound card is better and you know it. :)

I don't believe I ever argued otherwise.

You NEED graphics cards, because you can't even played modern games without them. Same with processors, RAM, and hard drives.

You don't NEED a sound card.