Computer won't turn on

sswingle

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
7,183
45
91
I built a computer a few months ago. It worked fine, but recently it started acting strange. The computer is kept on all the time, but whenever it would be completely turned off, sometimes it wouldn't turn back on. The first couple times it did this, I would just turn it off and on a couple of times, and then it would boot. Now, it won't come back on.

What is happening, is there is no video. The motherboard has onboard video, and I also installed a Voodoo 3 card in a PCI slot. I took the video card out using just onboard, i took out the modem, tried running it with each of the ram sticks individually, checked all the connections, and reset the BIOS with the motherboard jumper.

I don't think the problem is merely video because when turned on, the hard drive spins up, but after that the drive isn't being used, which means Windows isn't starting. Also, none of the keyboard indicators light up (num lock, caps lock, and scroll lock).

The processor is a Celeron 333, which I had overclocked to 366.

Everything inside appears to be working perfectly, the drives have power, the fans all spin.
Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?

Thanks!


 

Dragnov

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
6,878
0
0
You're keyboard lights don't every flash but everything else has power? That's very odd....

Try turning on the computer outside of the case. Sometimes those place holders/risers for the case to motherboard short it out not letting it boot.
 

DaiShan

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2001
9,617
1
0
those cold boot problems sound to me like a severed trace, maybe you inadvertantly scratched the motherboard somehow? When it warms up the wire it expands and makes the connection, when it is cold, it can't make the connection, just my $.02 tho
 

sswingle

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
7,183
45
91
Thanks for the help. I took the mobo out and found a metal standoff that wasn't lined up with a screw hole. Took that out, and it boots just fine.

Strange how it worked fine for so long before causing problems.