Computer nightmare - Come inside if you dare to help

[gplracer]

I am totally confounded. Never before had I not been able to figure out a computer problem but I am about to throw in the towel. Here is my situation. I made sure to get some beverage before typing this.......

Upgraded my son's video card from a 7800gt to an 8800gt. The computer then had no video. I was able to finally get it going. I do not know how because I really did not do anything. It would boot into safemode fine but windows had no video. There was sound and everything else. I plugged the video card into another computer because I thought it might be the issue but that computer booted fine with the video card. I figured it was the power supply. I tried another one and that did not work. I then thought it might be the ram. He has two sticks. I took each one out and left the other one in. At this point there was fans but no boot at all. I then thought well.... it is an old 939 motherboad so I went to newegg and got another one. This time it was a Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS. I know I know but that was the only 939 motherboard left. Guess what same result. The computer powers up but no beeps and no video. I thought maybe it was the cpu so I put the cpu from this computer in it with the same result. I have everything unplugged so that just the bare minimum is hooked up.

Any suggestions? My wife has me on a suicide watch so I am good. As for the computer... at this point I am almost ready to give my son my parts and get me a quad core, motherboard and 4 gigs of ram and call it a day!

 

[gplracer]

Well I see no one has chosen to join my misery. I noticed in the motherboard manual that it is recommended that only certain video cards such as the 6600 and the x800 be used. It says other graphics cards may not be suited for this motherboard. Maybe I should go to my father's house and borrow his cheap pci express card.....

 

[Sniper82]

what kinda PSU 's you try? Plug the PCI-E power cord up right?

 

[lxskllr]

Reset CMOS and check the ram thoroughly. I've had some bizarre coincidences regarding ram that have given me headaches(as well as a collection of unneeded replacement parts :^P)

 

[PurdueRy]

Update the motherboard BIOS

 

[gplracer]

I cannot update the motherboard bios becaue i cannot get it to post. I had an Antec 500 earth watt power supply. The PCI-E power cord is hooked up. I will clear the cmos.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: gplracer
I cannot update the motherboard bios becaue i cannot get it to post. I had an Antec 500 earth watt power supply. The PCI-E power cord is hooked up. I will clear the cmos.

You may need to get a cheap PCI-E 1.0 graphics card to boot off of to update the bios.

 

[Boobs McGee]

I didn't see if you said or not, but do you still have the 7800 to plug back in to verify?

When you say you finally got it going do you mean it started posting with no vid? You said it had no video then you said you got into safe mode with no video, can you see the bios screen?

 

[gplracer]

I did get it to post but that was with the old motherboad. This new motherboard will not post at all. The fans spin up and that is it.

 

[Roguestar]

Have you tried using the old video card in it, the 7800GS?

 

[gplracer]

No unfortunately I do not have the 7800gt any longer. I put it in a computer that I built for someone else. I have decided to RMA this motherboard, order a Q6600, 4 gigs of ram, and a new motherboard. Then I will give the stuff in my signature to my son.

 

[xtknight]

I don't see you ever ruled out the RAM completely. Can you try two other sticks?

Also I am not sure but the motherboard might expect a multiple of 2 sticks to be in there if it's dual channel. It may also depend on what slots you place them in. Check the manual.

 

[CKent]

Is it a prebuilt? Sometimes they have proprietary parts that wonk out if you change something or simply for no reason at all. I had to fix a Dell which wouldn't boot because of a proprietary sata driver well known for being bugged, I found a blog dedicated to the error when searching. It drove me nuts and I couldn't save any of the data on the drive, it had to be wiped.

 

[videogames101]

This is really weird, I just had a 939 rig stop working on me too, and even with every peropheral unplugged, either ram stick in, and 2 power supplies checked, it won't boot. i'm about to buy that same mobo, so I'll report in.

 

[tcas]

had a p4 not boot...it was the cmos battery.

replaced same....all was good

just a thought

m

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: tcas
had a p4 not boot...it was the cmos battery.

replaced same....all was good

just a thought

m

how long had you had it?

 

[gplracer]

Interesting.... It is keeping the settings in the bios so I would think the battery is fine.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: gplracer
Interesting.... It is keeping the settings in the bios so I would think the battery is fine.

BIOS settings aren't dependent on the battery. The real test is if the clock gets reset after every boot.

 

[tcas]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: tcas
had a p4 not boot...it was the cmos battery.

replaced same....all was good

just a thought

m

how long had you had it?

Sorry for late reply....think it was approaching 3 years and the computer started booting weird...sometimes yes, sometimes no and like you the bios settings were all there.

m

edit: That's what lit the light bulb...the clock would not hold time

 

[OverVolt]

I had to replace the motherboard on the PC I'm posting on now.

Initially had memory problems. A 5Mhz FSB overlock would not boot. I've never had an overclock not boot, yet alone a 5Mhz change in FSB.

So it ran find for about a year. Then randomly my onboard SATA RAID0 slots died, no biggie, I lost my array but just ran the two drives on normal SATA. So, about another year later I get instability problems again. Memtest86 says 3 entirely different sets of memory are bad, pulled from different PCs of mine. All exactly 10,500 or so errors around the same addresses everytime. Then I finally figured out the entire board was pretty much bad.