My desktop PC has developed a problem hafter being unused for a couple of weeks. When I shut down (XP) everything seems to behave normally, Monitor goes off, illuminated buttons go off, but the Power Supply and CPU Fans remain running. I now have to unplug. I have tried leaving them for ages - but they just ain't going to stop. The Motherboard is ASUS.
I have looked into a few forums but they don't seem very active. Any suggestions?
I've had very good help and advice from
uk.comp.homebuilt is active, still.
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Thanks for this one - I have posted a question.
IIRC (and it's a long time back now), XP was the windows release where Microsoft dropped support for all the older power management schemes, and used only ACPI. You might want to check in the BIOS options that you haven't accidently set something that disables ACPI (although I don't ever recall seeing such a BIOS option). ACPI is the interface the operating system uses to tell the BIOS to power off the system (amongst many other functions).
What happens if at this point you press and hold the power switch for
5 seconds?More generally, there's a hardware faults section on my site:
That would also seem a plausible failure after a period of non use. It could indicate the motherboard battery is nearly dead and hence is starting to lose settings when not used for a long time. I would treat it to a new battery (probably a CR2032 lithium coin cell).
Seems plausable as the house was a bit colder and it was unplugged for possibly the first time in a year or so.
I guess I need to check the process for changing it. No mention in the User Guide.
John Rumm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:
I guess the first step is to make some notes of the BIOS Settings so that I can re-set them.
Assuming they are still right...
(unless you have lots of exotic expansion in there, default settings will usually do. The one that sometimes bites is the IDE/SATA mode. XP will need it in IDE compatibility mode - most older boards will default to that - but not all, which can lead to unexplained bluescreens and restarts mid way through boot)
~Update.
I changed the battery. It made no difference.
I then follwed some advice to unplug the Power Lead from th Motherboard (20 pin socket) and then plug it back in - The PSU fan immediately ran. This indicates that something in the PSU is faulty (like a stuck relay).
I now need to decide if I can live with it or iff should change the PSU.
Thanks for your interest.
Don't PSU fans always run anyway?
Change the PSU if it annoys you.
The Natural Philosopher wrote in news:kf0fpb$fce$ snipped-for-privacy@news.albasani.net:
The PSU and the CPU fans would stop when I shut down Windows - also the monitor would go to standby. Surely this is normal. I understand that the motherboard signals the PSU to turn off (the fan's supply))
The PSU maintains a 5V low power supply on one pin IIRC. The fan should indeed be off.
Andy
Only if the OS can tell the BIOS to tell the PSU to shutdown... Maybe a setting in the BIOS (or OS) has accidentally changed. Check the motherboard battery and BIOS settings for shut down options.
What happens if you hold the power button pressed for > 5 s when windows is telling you it's "safe to turn off your computer"?
alt.os.windows-xp
I found 2 really helpful forums ...
Toms Hardware (UK & Ireland)
Free PC Health Check
PC HelpForum
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