This is a long story that spans almost a year... A real epic. Here it goes:
Last November, my PC hard drive took a dive. The specs I don't think are that important, as you'll see. Just know that the motherboard was an Asus A7N8X, so when it came time to buy a replacement, I thought I'd spring for one of those newfangled SATA drives. So I picked up a Hitatchi Deskstar. When I was installing, I removed the floppy drive so I could have more room to install it. I booted. I _think_ the SATA drive was detected, but what caught my attention more was the message "Floppy drive not detected." I could have entered the BIOS right there and removed it from the boot order (because I don't really use a floppy anymore) but instead I chose to turn off the computer, put back in and connect the floppy drive, and restart it.
I was greeted with a completely blank screen. I shut down, unplugged the floppy drive, and rebooted. I still had a blank screen. I unplugged my DVD drive, my CD-RW, and the SATA drive itself, and restarted. Still a blank screen. I assumed the motherboard or power supply had died. Anyway, due to school, job hunting, etc... I didn't have time to fix it for awhile. (Plus, I had a laptop to do most of my work on.)
Now I'm earning a paycheck, and you're always supposed to blow your first paycheck on something cool. I figured, why not revive the desktop? I decided I'd keep the Antec case, the Sony DVD drive, the Lite-On CD-RW, the Hitatchi SATA HD, and the Logitech keyboard and mouse. I bought (all from Newegg), a Haans-G 19" LCD, a CoolMax 500W power supply, a PowerColor X800GTO graphics card, an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, a EPoX EP-MF4-J motherboard, and two sticks of Patriot signature 512MB DDR2 677 SDRAM.
So last night, I put it all together, turn on the computer... And the same exact problem. A blank screen When it starts, the motherboard quickly flashes on an LED the code FF, which in the manual means "Boot Attempt (INT 19h)." Now I found online that this means it may be trying to attempt to boot (which is good -- the manual isn't clear on what the 'normal' code displayed would be, but I think this is it), but still nothing is displayed on screen.
Even more odd -- once the computer is on in this blank state, I can't use the power button to turn it off again. The DVD and CD-RW drives won't eject.
As for solutions I've tried: I've unplugged the HD, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW drives, but still nothing. I've shuffled around the RAM position. Both my old monitor and my 19" LCD screen, using the cables that came with each, show nothing. This is also a different video card. I've removed all the screws that attach the motherboard to the spacers, thinking it could be shorting it out. No luck.
Anyway... Any advice where I can go from here? Not having a desktop for almost a year can be crushing.
Thanks,
Mike
Last November, my PC hard drive took a dive. The specs I don't think are that important, as you'll see. Just know that the motherboard was an Asus A7N8X, so when it came time to buy a replacement, I thought I'd spring for one of those newfangled SATA drives. So I picked up a Hitatchi Deskstar. When I was installing, I removed the floppy drive so I could have more room to install it. I booted. I _think_ the SATA drive was detected, but what caught my attention more was the message "Floppy drive not detected." I could have entered the BIOS right there and removed it from the boot order (because I don't really use a floppy anymore) but instead I chose to turn off the computer, put back in and connect the floppy drive, and restart it.
I was greeted with a completely blank screen. I shut down, unplugged the floppy drive, and rebooted. I still had a blank screen. I unplugged my DVD drive, my CD-RW, and the SATA drive itself, and restarted. Still a blank screen. I assumed the motherboard or power supply had died. Anyway, due to school, job hunting, etc... I didn't have time to fix it for awhile. (Plus, I had a laptop to do most of my work on.)
Now I'm earning a paycheck, and you're always supposed to blow your first paycheck on something cool. I figured, why not revive the desktop? I decided I'd keep the Antec case, the Sony DVD drive, the Lite-On CD-RW, the Hitatchi SATA HD, and the Logitech keyboard and mouse. I bought (all from Newegg), a Haans-G 19" LCD, a CoolMax 500W power supply, a PowerColor X800GTO graphics card, an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, a EPoX EP-MF4-J motherboard, and two sticks of Patriot signature 512MB DDR2 677 SDRAM.
So last night, I put it all together, turn on the computer... And the same exact problem. A blank screen When it starts, the motherboard quickly flashes on an LED the code FF, which in the manual means "Boot Attempt (INT 19h)." Now I found online that this means it may be trying to attempt to boot (which is good -- the manual isn't clear on what the 'normal' code displayed would be, but I think this is it), but still nothing is displayed on screen.
Even more odd -- once the computer is on in this blank state, I can't use the power button to turn it off again. The DVD and CD-RW drives won't eject.
As for solutions I've tried: I've unplugged the HD, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW drives, but still nothing. I've shuffled around the RAM position. Both my old monitor and my 19" LCD screen, using the cables that came with each, show nothing. This is also a different video card. I've removed all the screws that attach the motherboard to the spacers, thinking it could be shorting it out. No luck.
Anyway... Any advice where I can go from here? Not having a desktop for almost a year can be crushing.
Thanks,
Mike
Facebook
Twitter