Pc worked fine at micro center but won't boot up at my house.

2070super

Solved

GavinT

@2070super Have you tried the PC at a friends house? At this point, I'm wondering if it's an underlying issue with your house's electricity as a whole.

2070super

@GavinT I was going to try it out to see if it worked at a friends house nearby to see if that was the issue. Also having an electrician come out tomorrow to take a look. I truly have never been this stumped in my life with a pc. Do you think it’s a problem with my power and have u ever seen this happen before? Thank you for your help Gavin.

GavinT

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/50676#Comment_50676

Let me start with this: I am NOT an electrician and I don't claim to be! My knowledge on the matter is solely based off of my experience with micro electronics and circuits.

While I have not ran into this exact issue before, my suspicion comes from the location swap of the system. The issue seems to be dependent on your location. The PC isn't getting past the initial boot, so software won't really play a factor at this point either.

Since the PC is turning off after 3 seconds, it could be falling back on a fail safe, to stop components from getting damaged. Now the exact reason why that's happening could stem from a few different things. If it just simply wasn't getting enough power, I feel like you would experience this issue with other devices in the house as well. Maybe there's an issue with the incoming 120v, that your PSU is just sensitive enough to trigger a fail safe, while other devices in your home aren't?

Have you tried to use a surge protector at all? Or better yet a UPS? I would recommend using a UPS of some sorts, as it's going to offer AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation) . This will stabilize the incoming alternating current to 120v before the power reaches your device at all, which may help.

That being said, if the UPS does resolve the issue, I still think it's worth having your home inspected by an electrician, as there could very well be another underlying issue, that you don't want to go unresolved.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@2070super

Based on what you're seeing it sounds like the ground outlets in your house aren't connected to anything. It probably connects back to main electrical panel, but there's nothing connected to ground. I'm speculating based on your symptoms, but that's what makes sense. Worth having an electrician check it out.

2070super

@GavinT Okay I greatly appreciate it. i’ve been using a surge protector this whole time but not a UPS (idk exactly what that is). I’ll have to agree with you and say my leading guess is that this is an issue with my electrical not giving enough power for my pc to safely start. I’ll go ahead and try to use a UPS to see if that will solve my issue, but I’m feeling my best bet would be to just call out an electrician to fix the problem. Thank you again for the help it means more than you know!

2070super

@PowerSpec_MikeW Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I have no clue what else this could be besides my electricity is all messed up. I’m just gonna have an electrician come on out and take a look at everything because idk what else to do. It’s been a week of this on and off unfortunately.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/50684#Comment_50684

I'd start by getting an outlet tester to confirm that a bad ground is the issue. They are relatively inexpensive and nice to have around the house: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-GFCI-Electrical-Outlet-Tester-with-LCD-RT250/313832938.

If anything, your electrician should have one in their toolkit to test and confirm this as well. Testing at a friends house would also be useful as it will at least confirm that the system itself is fine and survived the car ride home.

Scary_Guy

Sorry, but a bad ground wouldn't (or shouldn't unless there are some weird internal protections) prevent a system from turning on at all. Lots of old houses don't have proper grounded outlets. Though if nothing else changed I'd plug in a lamp to make sure the outlet works at all and also try the system in a different outlet/circuit in another part of the house, switch out the IEC power cable, test the PSU with a PSU tester (or just short the green wire to any black one on the main motherboard connector with a paperclip, unless they're all black/white, which I hate.)

It could also just be that when moving the system something got shifted and is now shorting the motherboard so it's refusing to start up. I'd go over everything inside.