My test server has been switched off in the garage for about 3 months. It is dry in there, and would have varied between 2 and 20 degrees C in that time. It was working fine when I switched it off. It will be 3 years old in a couple of days.

 

I just transplanted it to a new case with a Seasonic modular Platinum PSU (from another working machine) and now it won't switch on. I did not check that it worked before I removed it from the old case.

 

Symptoms are

1. Power Fail LED is lit on front panel.
2. Overheat/Fan fail LED is NOT lit.
3. BMC led is blinking green normally.
4. LE3 - standby power LED is lit green
5. LE6 - Power status LED is red but seems to have some yellow in it...
6. IPMI is accessible over the network, but trying to power on the host generates a fail message after a few seconds.
7. Power button does nothing. No Fans switch on, no beeps.

 

I have tried the following

 

1. Unplugged all peripherals, so only the main PSU cable and the CPU power cables are plugged in - no change
2. Replaced the battery. - no change
3. Tried the original power supply - no change
4. Tried another Corsair power supply - no change
5. Cleared the CMOS by shorting the contacts on the JBT1 - no change
6. Removed the motherboard from the new case and powered it up - no change
7. Removed the 4 sticks of RAM - no change
8. Removed the CPU and reseated it - no change

 

I've now removed the motherboard and yelled at it for 5 minutes. It is now in the house warming up on the radiator.

 

Anyone any other suggestions on what to try next. I don't have another CPU to try unfortunately.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Does the PSU spin up when power button is pressed? Any LEDs on the MB?

The Seasonic Platinum is fanless. The other PSUs don't spin up their fans.

 

The LEDs on the MB are the BMC which is working, the "standby power" led which is on, and the power status LED which I think is RED (power failed), but it might be yellow (power on standby)

Pressing the power button should turn on the PSU. Did you double check that the power switch wires are plugged into the motherboard properly? (Maybe the motherboard itself has a power button - newer MBs do, but many older ones do not). The power button itself might be bad. There is a way you can manually short the power pins on the motherboard to bypass the switch. 

 

The other thing to check is that the PSU 20+4 connector is securely plugged in. I once had a PSU where one of it's wires had popped out of the harness.

 

You might want to work through the list from the link below. I notice it suggests replacing the CMOS battery and a few other things that you could verify. Makes sense the battery may have failed.

 

https://www.lifewire.com/fix-a-computer-that-shows-no-sign-of-power-2624442

 

Good luck!

Hi, yes already tried shorting the power switch pins on the MB directly.

Already tried 2 other different PSUs.

Already replaced the battery.

 

Looks like the MB may be toast, which is annoying as it isn't that old.

I know that motherboards and electronics from years back had issues with capacitors bulging and failing. Resulted in things that would not turn on.

 

I had a TV fail that way, and managed to talk Samsung into covering it under warranty. Replaced the caps and the TV was still working a year ago when my kid bought a bigger one.

 

Could be something like that happened.

 

If you worked down that list and tried everything, not sure there is anything else to try.