Dead PC

[milehigh]

One of the boxes I built late 2002 will not boot. It has a 1.0 Gig Duron on a Chaintech 7AJA main board, 256 MB of PC133, PCI graphics card [recycled and manufacturer unknown], CD-RW, etc.

When the machine is turned on the HDD spins, CPU and PS fans both run, a red LED appears on the board by the DIMM slots and there is no monitor display and no power-up beeps from the box.

Should I try an AGP card or presume that it's a toasted chip. If it is the chip, one person told me that with AMD chips and boards that they're touchy enough that he won't put a new chip on an old board. He said that often caused the new chip to fail because the old board had been damaged by the failure of the old chip. True?

[bailey]

no post beep
and no error beeps is not a good sign
remove everything from the motherboard except the cpu and one stick of ram.
boot system and you should get all kinds of eror beeps
if you get no beeps the eather the cpu or the motherboard must be defective. or even the power supply

[milehigh]

Thanks, will try after sleep.

[kranich]

Bailey makes a great point. When in doubt strip the MB down and bring it up one component at a time.

[smithkjc]

I'm having the same problem except that i get power but no beeps or error codes or video. I hear the Hd spin up and the CD-Rom seem to work also. just no video

[eagle1]

If your board is shorting out, you get no beeps either (happens to me all the time).

Check the motherboard and components out of the case.
Also, if you have 2 ram modules, try just one of them and vice versa.

Good luck.

[smithkjc]

i'll try that thanks, oh I only have one 256 memory stick

[Brangwen]

Milehigh & Smithkjc:

Always clear your CMOS (aka "Real Time Clock") after pulling out and reseating components on motherboard. That little jumper "dance" can make all the difference.

Good luck!

Brangwen

[smithkjc]

I did I did the jumper and pulled out the battery for 30 min still no nothing I tried another power supply and memory. iget no beeps or anything

[rpertusio]

Originally posted by milehigh
one person told me that with AMD chips and boards that they're touchy enough that he won't put a new chip on an old board. He said that often caused the new chip to fail because the old board had been damaged by the failure of the old chip. True?

True in some circumstances! I have personally witnessed this one, and blown 2 good processors by placing them in a faulty board. *sniff* (The board was damaged by a short in the old CPU.) This is by no means a rule of thumb... I may have been very unlucky.

Thanks, will try after sleep.

It sounds to me like you're not dedicated and don't really want the problem fixed! We demand that you stay up until the problem is resolved, even if that means staying up for a week! (okay.. fine.. you can sleep I suppose)

If you have an AGP card, I don't think it would hurt to try it, if even to eliminate the PCI card as the problem. Even re-seating the card/memory might be all you need to do. (If it isn't seated properly, it won't make proper contact.)

baily's comment about the Power Supply (PSU) is a good one. I have also personally seen this be the cause of "no video, no beeps" situations. If the power supply doesn't have enough 'juice' to power the board/card, then it will 'silently fail' and you will get no video signal. Could you tell us what wattage your PSU is (and maybe the brand/model if you have it)?

eagle1's comment about shorting out is also quite valid. (eagle1, you should stop procrastinating and fix it for good.. ). By placing the motherboard on a non-conductive surface (outside of the case.. on a telephone book for example), you can eliminate the 'shorting out on the case' possibility. You'll want to try booting with only the bare minimum: Motherboard, CPU (with heatsink!), RAM, Video card, and power supply.

- rp