Hmmm, it was a sad day. I was playing TF2 on Friday night and after a 3 hour session my PC just died. I thought nothing of it as I was about to quit for the night anyway.

Sunday night comes around and I want to get going for a good 3 or 4 hour session.

* I turn on the PC [forgot about the Friday night thing].
* It powers on but...
* No video output
* No BIOS beep as power up
* I removed ALL addon cards [Video, Sound, SATA] and powered up the machine again. Still no BIOS beep

There are other things that I'm not mentioning as it may wrongly influence your ideas.

My belief is that something on the motherboard is fried, possibly the BIOS chip itself. I'm going to check the CPU but I doubt that's the problem as I'd still get POST.


Ideas?
If you need more info, feel free to ask.

Try this: Search the BIOS Reset Pins and connect them with a screwdriver/jumper to reset the board, that should bring the mobo back to standard settings, maybe it works.

wow, that´s severe
yeah, propably sth fried to crispyness, check if some conductors on the mainboard are fried, that should be easy to see
other than that, go to a pc-doctor

I have no faith in "PC Doctors". Anyone can call themselves "PC Doctors" and all they do is delete temp files and run an antivirus scan. I can do better myself unless it's a major hardware fault.

Yeah it's a serious fault. I'm just not sure where. I'll both of your suggestions at lunch time. I'll take the mobo out and take the CPU off too. Check for both.

Well, I'll try G's suggestion first as that's the easiest

after the post it usually goes through a SATA check and after that it will go to the bootsector.

Maybe something with the SATA stuff? (after you tried Gunits reset-the-BIOS trick)

Ps: Also, try to find if the battery is empty from the mainboard

G's test didn't work

I took out the CPU, cleaned it down and put it back in [with silcon heat gel :)]

I don't think a flat BIOS battery would stop prevent POST as the battery just allows BIOS config and date/time to be stored.

I doubt it's the SATA controller as POST doesn't even occur. When I power up the computer, all the fans come on, LED light up but no beep. Monitor stays off as if it wasn't connected. I doubt that it's the Vdeo card [ATI AGP] as I should get a POST beep even with no monitor or GFX card installed [headless].

I fear my only chance is to take out the motherboard and check for blown ships / transisters etc. Pain in the hole. However, if it's a blown transister, that should be easily fixed. other than that, I might break it apart for spare parts and buy a new rig when I have the money [a year or two down the road.] For the moment, my backup machine is capable of running TF2.

don't forget to search your problem on google. in 99.9%, you're not only with your problem

RangeR :

G's test didn't work I took out the CPU, cleaned it down and put it back in [with silcon heat gel :)] I don't think a flat BIOS battery would stop prevent POST as the battery just allows BIOS config and date/time to be stored. I doubt it's the SATA controller as POST doesn't even occur. When I power up the computer, all the fans come on, LED light up but no beep. Monitor stays off as if it wasn't connected. I doubt that it's the Vdeo card [ATI AGP] as I should get a POST beep even with no monitor or GFX card installed [headless]. I fear my only chance is to take out the motherboard and check for blown ships / transisters etc. Pain in the hole. However, if it's a blown transister, that should be easily fixed. other than that, I might break it apart for spare parts and buy a new rig when I have the money [a year or two down the road.] For the moment, my backup machine is capable of running TF2.

I thought you said it got through the POST sequence. So if I understand right, you don't see anything? Nothing?And if you see something, then what..
Screenshot needed (with digital cam?)?

No. NO POST.

No need for a digital pic. There is nothing to see. Monitor doesn't show anything. Doesn't detect that it's connected to a PC. No POST beep.

Nothing.

The only thing I KNOW are


1. PC is getting power, as it "turns on". It's not the PSU.
2. Same thing happens if I remove all PCI, AGP cards AND hard drives.
3. Possibly not the CPU as I took it out, cleaned it and put it back.

Ah clear. Then the only trick I know is the trick Gunit was talking about. Try to reset your BIOS by taking out the battery and start it without battery.

Note: this differs per mainboard, so check the guid for reset sequence. If this didn't do the trick then the software is stuck or your mobo is dead (somewhere).

I've had the same experience with a new mobo. I changed some config and since then it didnt work. The reset didnt work either.. I thought I could replace it with exact the same model, but XP doesnt like replacing a mobo for exactly the same.

Another question: Is your CPU/RAM overclocked? I had a similar problem when I was overclocking my PC when i got it and the RAM Clock was too high while the Ram Voltage was too low.

On the other hand if you reset your your bios like I posted above that shouldn't be the problem.

You said leds light up, do you mean leds like in fans or do you have any diagnostic leds on the board itself or on the back plate?

No overclocking on my baby.

LEDS = One LED on motherboard showing power. LED's on front of machine, indicating power and HDD.

No other LED's

Weird situation mister Keith..

Or pc speaker broken or Harddisk fails to work. ie: Something is keeping the mainboard from continuing startup.

On the other hand.. good excuse to buy a newer / better mobo

(with overclock/BIOS update protection)

The Merovingian :

Weird situation mister Keith.. Or pc speaker broken or Harddisk fails to work. ie: Something is keeping the mainboard from continuing startup. On the other hand.. good excuse to buy a newer / better mobo (with overclock/BIOS update protection)

I can't justify spending any money on it at the moment, seeing as I have a backup computer and little money in my pocket

If I'm going to spend money on resolving the issue, it will be a better computer, better mobo, better gfx, better HDD, better RAM etc.

It could be the 12v 4pin connector, it happened to a guy I know he had similar symptoms it turned out the connector shorted out also when cleaning out my PC I have forgotten to replace this connector onyl to find a blank screen.