Solved – Computer powers up, then dies with blinking power light
I have an eMachines computer here this week that the owner brought in with a power problem. After being turned on, the computer will run for a few seconds then all the fans stop and the power light begins blinking. The only way to restart it is to pull the plug and go through that routine again.
Generally there are two possible reasons for this behavior, one that you are hoping for and one that you are hoping against. If you are lucky, the problem is with a shot power supply. Sometimes this can be determined with a power supply tester, but in my experience this is hit-or-miss and the best thing to do is replace the power supply and see if the problem goes away.
Alas, my customer had the second problem, a blown motherboard. You can’t always identify this by looking but quite often you can. Open the case and look at the capacitors on the motherboard. The capacitors are the cylinder-shaped thingies, usually black with silver tops on them sticking up from the motherboard. They will often be clustered around the processor or the RAM. Normal capacitors have perfectly flat tops with little crimps in the shiny metal. If some of the capacitors on your motherboard are bullet shaped, with the tops puffed up, they are shot. You might also see some rusty gunk oozing from bad capacitors.
If you have the first problem, get a new power supply and you’ll be back in business, if you have the second you’re going to have to decide between a new motherboard and a new computer. Often it just makes more sense economically to replace the whole computer – alas. On the other hand, if you are good with a soldering iron, you can try buying a kit of new capacitors and replacing yours, it should work and you don’t have much to lose.
