HELP!! My PC won't start

[finnman]

Ok, Today I go to start my PC. I push the button and nothing. [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]
I replace the power supply,
I hit the button and it sounds like a normal start up,,But, there is no info on the screen.
Not even the screen showing all the drives loading.
It sounds like the Hard drives are spinning up.
Even if the Hard drive is dead, shouldn't I still get some
sort of display? [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]
I rechecked to make sure all connections are tight, I even
swapped power cables around,& swapped monitors.
Thanks.

[fett]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

Just go down to Sil-Val and buy a new one. J/K [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] If that happened to me, I would be dead in the water. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[charvelguy]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

what type of computer? are you getting a beep or series of beeps indicating an error in the cmos startup?

[Newc]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

Mine did that a while back. Spent over $600 tracking it down (power supply, new MOBO, another new MOBO cuz the one I ordered the first time was the wrong socket size for my CPU, new video card, new CPU (which still isn't here), and then finally traced it to a $20 firewire card from WalMart [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Remove everything from the board except the CPU and ram, then turn it on.
Then start plugging in one thing at a time (main drive, then CD, then sound card, then whatever) until it stops booting up.

[finnman]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

no beeps on start up.
When you say:

"Remove everything from the board except the CPU and ram, then turn it on.
Then start plugging in one thing at a time (main drive, then CD, then sound card, then whatever) until it stops booting up."

I need to keep the video card in don't I? so I can see if it's booting up? I tryed a diff video card already.

[jackson1]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

finn, sounds like your BIOS is dead or something. Heck, try this: find the round silver battery on the motherboard and make sure it sits firmly in its holder. Push it down, fiddle with it, maybe its corrosion on the poles. Just a wild guess.

Yeah, you need the video card to stay in.

[jackson1]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

Reading your first post, it could be that your power supply just died and fried something on the motherboard as it went down. I sure hope i'm wrong.

[finnman]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

What would make the bios go away.
And if it was gone how do I get it back?
Would pulling the battery erase the bios memory?
Battery dead?
Motherboard fryed?

[finnman]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

The MB is a ASUS A7U266-c. 512 DDR PC 2100.
My friend and I built it years ago.
No problems till today.

[charvelguy]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

Typically, you'd have an indication if the battery was starting to go.. the system wouldn't keep time..startup could likely be effected, but you should get an error before the thing dies completely. Sounds like a MB or maybe a backplane problem as a guess.

[jackson1]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

[ QUOTE ]
What would make the bios go away.

[/ QUOTE ]

A popped up BIOS chip. Re-seat the BIOS chip. It is probably the only larger chip that is in a socket, so you should be able to find it.
Press it down firmly and i bet it will squeak but down worry.

Get your PC friend over [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It is soooo difficult troubleshooting like this when the problem is complex (yours are, it seems).

[finnman]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

Ok, tryed all the above.
I'm going MB hunting tomorrow.
Our local Frys store should have one pretty cheap.

[micha]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

I'd guess your RAM is broken.
at least that's what happened to me once. but be careful with swapping it out, a broken RAM could easily damage other components.
I once tried swapping parts between computers to check out the source of evil and I ended up with a disaster.
I guess my RAM was broken, but it damaged the motherboard, the motherboard damged the other computers RAM once I got it in to test, and when I switched back the other MB was killed as well. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
I'd say test out your soundcard and drives, maybe swap the power-supply, but stay away from the fragile components as RAM and CPU.

which CPU do you use btw? I guess it's one of these socket A thunderbird AMDs, isn't it?
these thingys (especially the faster ones of this series around 1.4Ghz) were running close to their limit, had an incredible high temperature and tend to die after a couple of years. at least that's what my 1.4TB did. I ran it with an A7V266 too back in these days...

I doubt it's your CMOS or the battery. usually, when the batterie dies all the CMOS data is gone and you have to enter it again on start up. but you should see anything in that case.
if you want to give it a try anyway, just get the battery out, turn it around and put it back in for a couple of seconds. this way the poles are short-cut (or how you call it) and the bios is set back to factory defaults.

good luck!

[RacerX]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

[ QUOTE ]
what type of computer? are you getting a beep or series of beeps indicating an error in the cmos startup?

[/ QUOTE ]

Mine beeps 8 times. I think I'll just buy a new PC.

[wulfe13]

Re: HELP!! My PC won\'t start

The clamps holding my cpu in broke a while back and caused the same kinda thing. I replaced the MB and CPU. Might as well replace both while I was at it. I ended up spending $600! But it was worth it I guess, I'm not good at these kind of things. I'm more comfortable under the hood of a car.