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$400 For Tech Support?

J

jpetter76

Junior Member
I have had a somewhat disturbing problem with my new computer and need some advice before I pay some tech guys $400.

First ? I have an Abit IC7 mobo, w/ 2.6 800 FSB P4, 1 gig Corsair 3200 RAM and a Ati 9700 Pro VC. Built the thing, (with the latest BIOS update) and everything was happy until I decided to install a Thermaltake Volcano 7+.

After that the computer failed to boot, no beep, no BIOS, no nada. So I cleared the CMOS, removed all the ATX power supplies, reset the battery ? tried everything.

This is where the tech guys come in. They came and picked it up and five days later they tell me that it took all their experts to figure out the problem (guess these guys mostly work on computer systems for banks). They want to charge me $400 to rebuild it from the ground up. It goes into BIOS now, and they told me that all the hardware is fine. They are proposing to take everything out and reinstall I?m guessing. They said that the voltages got all wacky or somthing - pretty vague, because I think they are afraid that they will tell me enough to do it myself. This all seems very strange.

Does this sound crazy ? I mean ? what could they be doing that I would not do in the process of building the computer? Should I get it back and try the reinstall myself? Or are there things that the homebuilder (fairly knowledgeable) like myself would not know?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
😕
 
I smell BS, did you try putting the stock cooler back on after the problem? You may just have failed to seat the cooler properly something very common with the Volcanos.
 
put the stock cooler back on - even tried a different CPU. Fortunately they are telling me that the CPUs are fine
 
lights (and fans) come on, but no one is home
Click to expand...
A bad PSU can do this. If you can, try another PSU, or unplug any unneeded drives and devices and see if your PC powers up. You might also want to check to see if everything is seated correctly. Four hundred dollars for tech support is insane IMHO. I mean, I can build a pretty good PC for about that much!!

\Dan
 
My uneducated suggestions:
1. Pull everything off it, the video card, any other cards, drives, and even the memory. Of course, CPU with heatsink and fan are in.
You may have to leave the drives plugged into the power if you have a PS that needs a minimum load. (Anyone????)
2. You should at least get a beep if these three components are working.
3. If no beeps, but you have fans twirling, I would bet money either motherboard or CPU.
4. Have you pulled the motherboard out and put in on a piece of board or something else nonconductive (careful about static!). Hook up
power and soft-on switch.
5. Other should be able to help me here. Doesn't the P4 have some kind of thermal protection? SHould it have shut down if he didn't seat the
heatsink correctly?
6. Depending on the answer to the above question, if still no beeps I would put my money on the motherboard. (Just how hard did you press on
that heatsink?
7. I've offered the local PC shop $10 just to plug in another processor and see if it beeped. It was worth it, just to make the answer definitive.
 
Along the line of the PSU diagnosis -

My PSU is a 350W generic somthing - I'm running 7 case fans, HS fan, video card, 2 optical drives a floppy and hard drive. Think that I may be overloading it or should it be able to handle that no problems?
 
I have a Panflo brushless case fan in my hand. The label says 0.1 amp. Now the case and CPU fans do vary quite a bit, but 8 of my fans would pull less than 1 amp. What is the current load of other fans people have around.

Now the optical drives can be unplugged to test that hypothesis.

I think the first decision you face is whether or not you have these guys charge you $400. If you don't mind some degree of frustration, I would get the box back and do some systematic troubleshooting. Anyways, good luck!


-Optimist

 
First, tell them it's not worth $400 to 'fix' it. Make SURE these jesters give you back the stuff you gave them (they might try to pull the ol' switcheroo on you with some components, such as the video card).

Yipes... for $400 you could almost build a new system.....
 

Get it back and rebuild it yourself. If you can't pull it off you'll be able to find someone else to do it for far less than $400.

If it will post already then you are set. I'm sure they aren't deliberately ripping you off but the end result is the same.
 
Do it yourself. Take the motherboard out of the case and stick it on a piece of cardboard. Only plug in PSU, ram, cpu (check the thermal compound) and video card. See if she boots up. it could easily be a grounding problem that didn't show up until you pressed on the MB to install the HSF.
 
Alright - Got the case back and started testing. Disconnected all power sources except for 2 to the motherboard and 1 to the video card. Removed all IDE cables - nothing on powerup

Took out the video card as well - nothing. That is, CPU fan runs, chipset fan runs, and the lights on the motherboard are on - no beeps

What next? Take the motherboard out? The $400 guys said all the hardware was fine. Starting to wonder. What would be the advantage of taking the motherboard out of the case to test? I'm going to try the video card in another computer today.

Any advice helps - Thanks
 
Is your diagnostic LED's lighting up at all? You should definately just rebuild the thing.

Take it out and make sure it is seating in the case correctly (no extra standoffs).

Unplug your power cord and use the clear CMOS jumper.

Re-install the CPU and the HSF(making sure to use thermal compound - just in case you didn't before...🙂), making sure the fan sensor plug goes to the CPU fan header (or at least plug a case fan with a sensor into it).

Then install one stick of memory and your video card and try to boot. If no go, then try the other stick of memory.

If all that fails, make sure your speaker is plugged in and then remove the memory and video card and see if you get a diagnostic beep letting you know it is failing to find memory/video.

If you get no beep, you have a) bad power-supply b) bad motherboard c) bad processor d) any combination of the above.
 
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