Power outage made computer unbootable

[Beavis]

The power went out last night at my house and shut down my computer. When I try to turn it on the fans will spin for a second then nothing happens. This has happened before but it would work once I clear the cmos. This time it's not working, I left the jumper on clear for 30 minutes even and put the jumper back on normal. Do you think something got fried this time? I have a surge protector but that's it. It's the first computer in my sig.

[AlucardCasull]

how powerful is your surge, and do you have both computers hooked up? This happened to my friend, i think they ended up re-formating, when the power went out, it messed up his drivers, a real pain.

[Beavis]

It's just a cheap $5 strip I bought at Fry's with the little red switch. I guess that's not really a surge protector. The other computer is actually not plugged in thankfully so it wasn't harmed. I backed up my files on my 2nd computer so my data is safe. I won't be able to reformat because I can't get the computer to boot. I do have an extra motherboard so I can install that and see if I can boot the computer. What should I do from here?

[rogerdugans]

Sucks man- I lost a cpu that way once. :(

I would start swapping things out (cpu/mobo/ram/psu) to see what you find out.

One note: it MAY be ok if you wait a few days, although not likely.

[Beavis]

I noticed that the when I flip the switch on the back of the power supply I don't hear that sound the computer makes a few seconds after cutting power. Does that indicate a cause?

[mrnuke]

must have blew out one of the pots in the psu possibly...... or just overloaded it w/ a surge before it went down.

[Beavis]

I'm going to install another psu and see what happens. One thing to add is when I clear the cmos and press the power button the fans spin for a second but pressing it again doesn't do anything. However if I clear the cmos again the fans spin like before. What does that mean?

[rogerdugans]

:(
That's what happened when my cpu went, as I recall. (Of course that was a year or two back and, well...things get foggy that far back.)

Mix and match time.

Best of luck!

[itizme]

I don't like to hear this one at all.
A month or so ago I redid a comlete system that was hit by a power surge and I was able to determine the following parts were still useable.
1 case
1 floppy drive
1stick of ram
ide cables and floppy cable

Items lost
2 hard drives (one was a hundred gig too and the one that burnt damaged the other one)
2 optical drives
1 mobo
1 cpu
1 stick o ram
1 psu
1 modem
1 sound card
1 lan card

I should note though that every external peripheral was ok

[amanojyaku]

sorry about that man. i hope you can find some parts on it that were not damaged

[Beavis]

Ok guys I finally found the problem. I replaced the power supply and my system works now. All my other parts survived thankfully. It sucks that my Fortron 530w is now toast, I just bought it a month ago. I wonder if Fortron will repair it for a fee, otherwise it's $75 down the tubes. Thanks everyone for your help, I'm going to check around and see what I should buy for a backup power source.

[XunknownX]

So you paid $75 for a 530w PSU?

[Beavis]

I bought it from Dealsonic for $75.

[larrymoencurly]

www.repairfaq.org

It can probably be diagnosed with just an ohmmeter, and any replacement capacitors, transistors, diodes, or fuses shouldn't cost more than $10. Do not use NTE general purpose replacements, if possible, because I've read that many aren't right at all, and they usually cost more than exact replacements. Do all the testing only with the AC power cord unplugged, and wait at least 20 minutes before opening up the PSU.