There goes any hope I had about having a computer for years. --- Post updated --- Is there a way I can see which components no longer work? Or is it just trial and error.
If your computer is turning on as shown it probably wasn't that bad. For example you may not have a power surge, it could simply be that your PSU died and tried to take everything else down with it, so the mobo shut off as quickly as it could. In which case maybe the motherboard and anything powered through it is fine (aka, mobo, RAM and CPU). But anything powered directly by the PSU may or may not be deaded.
To be completely honest I am not sure. I imagine how you debug stuff will depend on your motherboard and what error reporting features it has. You may be able to find out a lot through post codes, or it may even have a GUI interface on the UEFI that shows which components are working or not. Well, I would recommend not using any PSU for any product if you have reason to believe that it may be faulty. Not sure how you would be able to test it (without specialised testing equipment such as an artificial load) without potentially causing further damage to other systems and components.
I at least need to reinstall Windows so I can get my data off of it. This looks like the drives are fine, right? Also, the only debug is a beep, one means it's fine IDK anything else. It did one beep when I booted it today.
Impossible to say from that. But the computer is correctly recognising them which is a good sign, so they might be fine. But the fact that you are having to reinstall windows would indicate that something is very much not good. Are you sure that you can't just point your mobo to the correct boot device and have everything boot up as normal? What PSU do you have in your system?
The surface pro's pen doesn't work, but that's probably unrelated. Everything else is fine, and my clock didn't reset meaning it wasn't a housewide powersurge.
You may be able to get a warranty replacement on the PSU, but if the PSU has damaged anything else in your system you won't be able to warranty replace those items.
All it states is that you have a 3 year warranty. So if your PSU is under 3 years old, contact them, explain that you think the PSU has done a bad and hope that they decide to help you out. It may be worth testing a PSU from another computer first if you are able to.
This was my first build, so I can't test anything. I'll give them a call, though. --- Post updated --- Is there a way to backup my files without installing Windows? It won't work.. --- Post updated --- Also, could it just be the cable? I don't want to take apart my computer, so if it could just be the cable, that would save time and money.
A surge is an increase in power, not a decrease. Specifically, an increase in mains voltage often biased into DC rather than AC which in turn due to ohms law increases current and hence overall power. Disconnecting a cable cannot do that. A dodgy cable will be very black or white, you'll either have power or you won't
I booted into Ubuntu live from USB to get some data and put it on my external hard drive, and it looks like everything is intact. Both my SSD and HDD can be read from and written to, and everything worked as expected. Could it be a fluke or does my PSU pose a legitimate risk to my parts? Also, what could be causing Windows not to boot if the drives aren't dead?
