Help - Dead Pc

[Nevin]

My Pc had been working fine up until a couple of weeks ago, when the monitor wasn't coming on when I powered up. I took it apart and cleaned a ton of dust out and it seemed to be working fine. Then yesterday the same thing happened again. Nothing seems to fix it. All of the fans are spinning up on the mobo and graphics card and the power led on the mobo is on. However, it don't get the usual initiation beep and it sounds like the hard drive isn't spinning up either. Have tried two different hard drives so don't think it is that, so either the mobo or graphics card or both.

Any suggestions much appreciated before I go out and buy a load of expensive kit.

[Zod]

unlikely to be the graphics card or you'd get repeated beeps. Sounds like the motherboard. If it were processor or RAM, you'd get beeps.

[Zad]

Open the case and make sure the power supply connector is seated firmly. At the same time, make sure the memory, cpu, all the fan connectors and any add-in cards are securely seated too.

[ThePassenger]

As I said in the other thread. Remove all hardware from the system, disconnect drives and so on.

Power on. Without a gfx card or RAM installed the thing should beep like crazy. If it doesn't, then the mobo is dead. If it does, begin replacing a part at a time (or connecting a drive if you run out of cards) until the system refuses to do anything... that part will be the duff one (and yes, a buggered HDD can stop a system doing the single POST beep, so don't discount that).

[Nevin]

Looks like the motherboard then in that case, so thanks all for the advice. Will order a new one tonight.

[shocker-z]

could be PSU beleave it or not.. can cause very weird symptoms!

What i would do

Take Mobo out of PC have only RAM and CPU and PSU plugged into it. short out the power connector pins and see what happens..
If this spins up you should get beeps as no GPU inserted else remove RAM and try if still no beeps then motherboard issue
If you get beeps then try adding GPU and see if it works, as this could be another PCI card or addon or even Dodgy broken USB ports causing your problems.


Regards
Liam

[Zad]

shocker-z said:

could be PSU beleave it or not.. can cause very weird symptoms!

What i would do

Take Mobo out of PC have only RAM and CPU and PSU plugged into it. short out the power connector pins

I *think* you mean the 2 pins that connect to the power switch on the front panel. NOT the power connector pins. Short out the power connector pins and you will certainly need a new PSU and/or motherboard.

Yes, it could easily be the PSU. Check by disconnecting the power supply leads to the hard drives, that will remove some of the load on booting.

[Nevin]

Okay, done all of that and it still isn't working for me. PSU is 425w so I would hope it has enough power, but admittedly may not if it isn't working properly. Going to do a final clean and run through of checks this morning before I go and spend any money.

[xiphias]

Beware just replacing the motherboard. A dead cpu can cause a dead motherboard and so swapping a dead cpu to a working motherboard may in fact result in another dead motherboard (as I found out).

[shocker-z]

just check that you havn't got a Bestek PSU because if you have then it's probs the PSU AND MOBO as they are a pile of $#?~!

You could do with hooking up another PSU from a mates PC just to see if u get beeps and test diffrent RAM too just in case as i wouldn't like to spend money without diagnosing the fault first else u might as well just buy a new PC


Liam

[Zad]

One last thing to try, remove the onboard battery (or disconnect the link) for 15 mins or so. It is not unknown for the battery backed configuration RAM to get corrupted. Of course it may be a Flash based system, in which case there may be a "restore" jumper onboard.

[sneakyneil]

shocker-z said:

just check that you havn't got a Bestek PSU because if you have then it's probs the PSU AND MOBO as they are a pile of $#?~!

Seen quite a few dead emachines in the last 6 months or so with Bestec's in them! Mobys too.. (There's only two of us here and the other guy's really a developer so I get all the basket cases )

[tigger1]

Bestec? Could be worse, I'll raise you "PC Chips".

Hope you get it solved.

[greenlandy]

I raise you "QDI"

[ThePassenger]

Foxcon

[Nevin]

Hiper PSU and ASUS motherboard. Have tried everything suggested and it appears to be the mobo, so will need to try and get a new one. Unfortunately, I have a socket 754 mobo and AMD XP1900 processor (I think). Will this processor fit on more modern mobos or do I need a new procesor as well? And a PCI-Express gfx card to replace my AGP one? And will my DDR Ram work on a DDR2 mobo?

Gah.