Desktop won't start; blinking green light

[whymejake]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!   Heating Power Supply fan inlet with the hair dryer made the blinking green light disappear and the computer works fine.   I don't know why this works but in less than 2 minutes I was up and running.  Made the mistake of telling my wife, she now wants $100 for computer repair.  LOL  When that green light went solid on, I couldn't help but laugh. 

[woodmereman]

Blow dryer trick didnot work for me and the light stops blinking only after i unplug PSU from the motherboard

[whymejake]

Did your computer continue to work even after you turned it off?  My blinking light came back.  But heating it made it solid again.  HP has to know what is going on here, why isn't there some ideas from them how to make fix permanent.  I have a couple of old power supplies that I am going to try after I try unplugging that cord.  Must be some kind of voltage monitor, I know there is one that is checked before it will allow application of all voltages I just don't remember which one.

[bertiebassett]

6 year old a1626 pavilion. Off overnight & tried to restart unsuccesfully. Blinking green LED on power supply. 15 seconds of hairdryer into the power supply & bingo. LED steadied and then started perfectly. Worth a go! My wife thought I was mad.

[bertiebassett]

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@cambuslang wrote:

Why does this work? I just spent hours last night and this morning trying to fix this issue. Found this on a link, so Happy Thanksgiving 2011

William

My wife's computer has been having the same problem several times. One solution I found that worked before was to unplug the motherboard power cable and the PSU (power supply unit)  power cable from the back of the PC and then connect the power cable and connect the motherboard power cable while holding down the power button. Scary, to say the least, but it worked, until one day I accidentally flipped the wrong breaker and then spend two hours trying the same solution with no luck and Googling again. And here is what I found. This is the simplest yet crudest solution. It’s easy and non invasive and it doesn’t matter how tech savvy you are. Take a blow dryer and turn it on to blow air at the back of the power supply for a couple minutes. When you see the light turn green you’re all set. It's worked for me after it worked for a hundred others, maybe more. See the testimonials on this site: http://talk19.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/hp-m7088d-power-supply-led-blinks-green/. It’s a shame that nothing like this appears on any HP site. So don’t waste your money on a new Motherboard or PSU. All you need is your wife’s hair drier.

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6 year old a1626 pavilion. Off overnight & tried to restart unsuccesfully. Blinking green LED on power supply. 15 seconds of hairdryer into the power supply & bingo. LED steadied and then started perfectly. Worth a go! My wife thought I was mad.

[instinctive1]

Thank you, I have had this problem for a while now and was always able to fix by removing the power cord from both the back of the computer and the main power supply to the mother board.  That did not work this time.  I do not have a blow dryer so I put the tower in front of my wood stove and cranked the fan up to high.  20 min later when the power supply felt good and warm I pluged everything back in and it started right up.  Wood Stove-I know- its Idaho what can I say.  Thanks again.

[Chief100]

HP Pavilion Elite 480t - When I push my power button, the fans start to come on and the green light blinks off for a second, but then everything stops (and the light stays on). About five seconds later the light will blink off again for just a second while everything tries to crank up, but then it repeats the same thing again. Is this the type of "blinking" that everyone is fixing with a hair dryer?

I have been having this problem intermittently for several years. It seems to be triggered by house power outages. It did it once while under warranty and HP replaced the motherboard - but that didn't fix the problem.

This morning it was acting up, so I disconnected all the power supply connections in the computer and started reconnecting them one at a time. The culprit was labled P7, a four pin connector with black and white wires going to the motherboard. With it disconnected, the rest of the computer would stay partially started, but with it connected, I got a repeat of the original scenario.

I left the computer off while I went to lunch, and when I got back, everything cranked up and worked correctly.

So it is definitely an intermittent problem, but I would sure like to get it fixed before whatever is wrong goes out entirely.

Help?

[whymejake]

I tried unplugging the power supply and the mother board this weekend.  It also works fine.  Plug power supply into 115 and then replug back into mother board.  Worked like a champ.  Will still stand by the blow dryer as well though, it worked in the past. 

[nickburns]

Your solution to accidentally plug and unplug the 12 pin main worked like a charm!!!!

You are some kind of rain man genius 

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@skullbucket wrote:
Just had the same problem. Looked at the troubleshooting guide and nothing worked. Accidentally unplugged the main motherboard power while the PC power was still plugged into the outlet and then plugged back in and presto, now it works.

[BILL90240]

The blowdryer solution was great.  Thank you.

bill90240