PC=Kapputt!! Diagnosis help plsssss!

[Gilbern74]

Hi
I was away from home last week and got back to find my trusty PC won't start.
My son was the last to use it and says that he was playing a game when the screen went blue (BSOD?).
He tried to restart it. Apparently for the next few startup attempts it got as far as the windows 'there has been a problem....do you want to start in safe mode..la, la, la...' with the countdown timer.
The eventually even this did not appear so he gave up.

So then I got home and found that it doesn't even boot to the Bios now. Nothing, nada, nitche.
I can press the power switch and it comes on. The fans come on the case, Mobo and PSU, the hard drives give their customary wind up noises that seem fine.
But it doesn't get to the trusty 'beep' as the Bios comes in. There is nothing on the screen (the monitor doesn't even flicker or register any output to it).
The Motherboard green light is on.

My first diagnosis was that there was a problem with the PSU - the on/off switch and the plug socket in it were both loose and 'sparky'. There was a lot of dust so I figured this had shorted.
I bought a new PSU from PCworld -( !). This didn't fix it.

So I'm not sure what the next thing is - either the 'sparky' PSU has blown the M'board, or the CPU has gone...?

I'd rather replace like for like than spend on a new set of Mobo/CPU/RAM. Just can't squander that kind of cash.

So should I try buying a cheap CPU first to see if it's that, or M'board - off eB ay?


Spec is in my signature. What could it be?



Thanks.

 

[Cairnsey]

do a cmos reset first if that doesn't fix it, it's a process of elimination with your components I reckon...

 

[redeye_uk]

I had a similar problem with some faulty RAM - the system would power on (but no 'beep' from motherboard, and there would be nothing on the screen.)

I replaced the RAM and everything has been fine since....

 

[Gilbern74]

do a cmos reset first if that doesn't fix it, it's a process of elimination with your components I reckon...

I tried the CMOS reset and that didn't do anything....

I replaced the RAM and everything has been fine since....

.

I have 4 Ram sticks in there=3Gb, 2x512Mb Corsair and 2x1Gb Kingston. I did try leaving in 1x1Gb only but with no success. I haven't yet swapped them all around so I'll try that next. I'll try anything!



Thanks both for your input...

 

[hp7909]

I can press the power switch and it comes on. The fans come on the case, Mobo and PSU, the hard drives give their customary wind up noises that seem fine.
But it doesn't get to the trusty 'beep' as the Bios comes in. There is nothing on the screen (the monitor doesn't even flicker or register any output to it).
The Motherboard green light is on

Had a mobo last year which did this. Was still under warranty so sent it back it & they found it was indeed faulty. Mobo was an Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe (nForce 4 chipset).

But I'd try test the other components (also GFX) on another system just to rule them out.

 

[Guardsmon]

First think would be to unplug everything though. So only have the motherboard, 1 stick of memory, the CPU and graphics card if you don't have an internal plugged into the PSU and see if it starts. Sometimes you'll find a dead hard drive can screw things over.

Its odd that it blue screened and then go to windows a few times before booting. That is normally software issues or hard drive issues. The BIOS not booting though is either your motherboard or power supply (though You seem to have taken that out of the mix) and sometimes memory, but you'd normally have the BIOS start to load before it moans about memory.
If you know anyone around who's got a 940 (i'm guessing thats your pin arrangement) motherboard that you could borrow for a short time I would try that.