Computer powers on, doesn't boot

[Trigonal Planar]

My friend is having a weird problem with this computer so I turn to you, the teeming millions, to help.

The problems started when he plugged his computer in a friend's LAN and installed a game. Upon trying to play the game, it gave some error about the video drivers which he then checked in Windows only to discover they were completely gone. He then rebooted and found that he could not get past the scandisk screen. After trying this a few times it got worse:


When powered on, no signal is sent to the monitor. Also, the computer fails to boot. There is no hard drive whirring up sounds, no beeps, nothing; the fans however all turn on. We checked the power supply output and all voltages were correct. We also tried various combinations of his two sticks of 128mb of RAM - each stick alone, no sticks, reversed order. No combination made any difference.

It seems to me something has gone wrong with the motherboard...maybe a power surge or something caused damage?

[Number]

It sounds like a problem with the motherboard or video card. I would recommend removing all other peripherals, then re-seating the video card. If it's PCI, move it to a different slot. If it still doesn't work, beg or borrow another card and try it.

Test the monitor on a working machine to verify that it's good.

[Trigonal Planar]

monitor is good, we checked it.

Also tried removing all peripherals - same thing.

Obviously checking another video card would be the thing to do, but I can't get ahold of one right now.

[Read_Neck]

Do you have a Motherboard Manual. Some of the newer boards have a pin that gives you the option to reset the BIOS.

[SlickRoenick]

Is this a Soyo DRAGON Black Edition motherboard? If it is, get rid of it.

[Trigonal Planar]

its a used computer (has always worked fine before) so no manuals.

My friend says they were having lots of power issues while at the LAN party...I'm still thinking this had something to do with it. But how can I check if its the motherboard or the chip itself?

[SlickRoenick]

Try hot-wiring the mb:

--Disconnect IDE ribbon cables, music CD cable, floppy cable, pull out all the cards including video card, and pull off the jumpers for the reset button, power LED, etc, remove RAM and the CPU
--Plug the power connector (ATX I assume?) to the mb.
--Find the jumper for the Power Switch and touch the two contacts points together (with a screwdriver or something metallic to turn on the mb.

If the fans come on and stay on, then it is probably not a power problem. You might have to touch and hold the contact points to make it turn off (depends if it's a soft power switch or not)

Next put in CPU/heatsink and RAM. Touch the Power Switch contact points again, check the fans. If nothing happens or if the fans come on for a few seconds then it is problem with the socket.

Some motherboards will allow you to hold INSERT on the keyboard, turn on the computer and then go immediately into your CMOS where you should select Load Fail-Safe Settings. Hmm, maybe you should try that first.

[ftg]

Originally posted by Trigonal Planar
its a used computer (has always worked fine before) so no manuals.

Look for a MB id in silk-screening or on the edge of the "right most" slot. E.g., MX58+. Then do a Google on that. Try dropping the last char or so if that doesn't match. (Google groups is also good.) That should lead to info on who makes, then check their web site. I can almost always get a pdf of a manual that way.

Or: If you can get it to boot a little, then read the bios id string and go to Wim's bios page to find out more.

Regarding resetting the bios: take out the battery for a while. (I use a day but that is overkill.)

But: it sounds to me like a cpu overheating problem. The damage may have been done.

[Quartz]

My friend says they were having lots of power issues while at the LAN party...

Power surges are bad news for an unprotected PC.

[Shagnasty]

I just had this same problem yesterday with a work computer. The problem turned out to be a bad keyboard of all things. It did the same thing as long as it was plugged in. You could try unplugging the keyboard to see if it will boot. Won't hurt to try.

[handy]

Could be the power supply, try another one. Happened to me twice & the power supply wasn't putting out enough watts (although the voltage was okay, so things did light up)....

[Mr. Slant]

My first thought was failing hard drive.
Reading further, I decided it was probably the power supply.
Replace the power supply, and hope that that was the only destroyed component.
"Doesn't finish CHECKDISK" isn't something normally associated with a non-failing hard drive...
Also, buy a UPS, even one of those small ones that look like overweight surge suppressors. That will eliminate 95% of damage due to evil power situations.
When you go to LAN parties, take the UPS.

[Iteki]

I was going to post an almost identical question! Trigonal, can I hijack when you are done here?