I forgot the First Law...

[Bluemage]

Last night, when I got home from work, my computer wouldn't start. The CD drives spun up, and the secondary PSU lit, but no case fans, no power light, and
nothing else. I panicked, and spent an hour researching new motherboards for the inevitable replacement, since that was obviously the problem. It wasn't the PSU, else the secondary PSU and the CD drives wouldn't've lit up, and anything
else going wrong would've allowed the mobo to POST. What else could it be?

Then, I opened the case to check on it. No obvious scorch marks or blown transistors, so whatever happened probably didn't fry anything else. I jiggled a
few power connectors, then fired it back up to see which (if any) fans spun up.

All of them (6 120mms plus the secondary PSU and CPU fan) did, and, to my surprise, I heard a POST beep. I closed the tower back up, put it back in its spot
in my room, hooked it back up and, fingers crossed, started it again. Everything started up, and I got a message saying my last boot (w/o power to the mobo)
failed, and I needed to check BIOS settings. So I did, restarted, and am typing this on my (now working) PC.

The moral of the story is to never forget the First Law of Electronics Troubleshooting ("Never blame a multi-hundred-dollar component before checking all
the $5 cords attached to it.", in this case), or it's corrollary ("Never blame the $5 cord until you check the connection. Cords cost money;
reconnecting them doesn't.").

Boy, is my face red!

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Black Aeronaut]

Makes me wonder how that happened in the first place. Usually when I have that problem it's because I've been working on the blasted thing just prior
to starting it up. (My personal favorite is the one where it acts like your hard drive just up and died!)

[Bluemage]

I'm not sure. It worked perfectly that morning, and I didn't shake, jostle or smack it at any point in between.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Florin]

Every time the computer is running, it's vibrating, even if just slightly. And those vibrations slowly work cords out of the sockets.

Or it was Gremlins. Did you remember to spray this month?
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If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.