Clueless on no boot

[JohnHenryDoe]

O.k. I had these specs:
Athlon 1600+
512 pc2100
40gb HD
4gb HD
Nec 3250A
Pioneer 104
Radeon 64mb
Win XP Pro
Ecs K7VTA3All ran fine until a few days ago, when I exchanged the cpu to a newer Athlon 2400. Turned pc back on and no video signal.
Hard drive lights work and spin; keyboard flashes; cpu and power supply fans working; but no boot or signal for video.
To save time, yes I pulled out everything and did a bare cpu, memory, video card test. Nothing.
Have 2 sticks of memory so I flip-flopped those in different slots, together, and alone.
Used an old pci video card. Nothing.
Reset cmos, took battery out, still the same.
THought it was old bestec 250 watt PSU. Alas borrowed a good 350 watt PSU and still no change.
Thought it must be motherboard. Got a PcChips M811 from Newegg and I'll be darned if it still just sits there.
Oh yeah, monitor works with laptop so I know its good.
So, I know only a few things.
My monitor works.
I have 2 motherboards that may not work.
I have 2 cpu's that could be fried.
I have 2 sticks of ram that could be bad.
I have 2 video cards that should be good.
Not sure where to go with this. Any suggestions?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

My guess is incompatability between the CPU and the mobos. Make sure you have the latest bios for each board. During the socket A era, many of the earlier motherboards wont support the latter CPU's (or only with a bios update). I have an old Tbird 1400 on an Asus A7A266 rev.1 board, and when I research I found it would only support up to a 2200+ CPU even with the latest bios

Do some research on the particular revisions of the two boards you have.

 

[JohnHenryDoe]

Well, without being able to boot, not much use even if there is a bios update. Can't flash it if the board won't post.
Also have 2 cpu's, one 1.4 amd and amd 2400 so one should boot in the pcchips.
Any way to flash without boot?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: JohnHenryDoe
Well, without being able to boot, not much use even if there is a bios update. Can't flash it if the board won't post.
Also have 2 cpu's, one 1.4 amd and amd 2400 so one should boot in the pcchips.
Any way to flash without boot?

Depending on the board, on many you can load a flash utility and the bios on a floppy and boot up to the floppy and flash it that way. But you may have to put the 1.4 in long enough to flash the bios.

 

[mlc]

somewhat unclear... are you saying that your config worked perfectly fine with the +1600, and then after replacing it with the +2400 it wont boot? And then you tried to reinsert the +1600 and it will no longer boot either ?

if that's the case.. sounds like the CMOS is not clearing.. try leaving the battery out for a couple of hours prior to trying the xp1600 again... and if that works, then flash to a newer bios with the 1600 installed... prior to trying the new cpu

let us know how u make out