Frustration

[olds]

I'll try to keep this short.
I had a 650 watt Enermax power supply go bad. Machine wouldn't POST, it just kept rebooting over and over again, all on it's own. I replaced it with an Antec 400 watt. All was good. About one week later, I had no video. I tried a differemt monitor, different video cards both PCI and AGP, moved the 2 sticks of memory to different slots and tried them one at a time in different DIMMs. Had the memory tested by a local shop, it is good. Tried a different CPU, booted with just 1 stick RAM, video card (3 different ones) and CPU w/HSF. Tried this with mobo out of machine. Nothing worked. RMA'd mobo, it was bad according to the packing slip that came with the new one. Put in new mobo. Booted to windows, checked device manager, all was good. Played some .wavs, surfed the internet and started to dl new dats for Norton's. Took my second machine that I was using in place of the broken machine into another room and set it back up. Went back into my home office to check Norton's progress and no video. Rebooted, no video. The fans spin up and the monitor light flashes between green and yellow. Tried different video card, no video. Screamed at the top of my lungs and opened a beer. What now?
AMD 1.33 - 2 X 256 MB PC 2100 - Elsa Gladiac Ultra - Win 98SE - 400 watt ps - SB LIve - D Link NIC

 

[olds]

Last night I reset the CMOS jumper and pulled the plug. Left it that way till morning, reset jumper, plugged it in and it started but crashed after loading the desktop wallpaper. Restarted and it was running but acting funny. Folders wouldn't close after opening them, I had to do the 3 finger salute. I was browsing the internet, I heard 1 "click" sound come form the machine and the video signal died. Machine was still running, it didn't shut down. It probably ran for 30 minutes, temp was 38c.

 

[Bglad]

If your psu went bad, it is likely it took the mobo with it. Given that, it is not unlikely that it took something else with the mobo as well. You said you checked video card, memory etc. before sending the mobo back. I think you are going to have to go through all your hardware again with the new mobo. Guessing hardware based on the click sound you heard but a power spike could also have frbbitzed your HD and Windows which might need a reinstall. The click could have been the HD, in fact, its not unlikely as this is about the only moving part other than the fans.

You say you have another machine, take the video card, sound card etc. out of that one and put it in the box having problems to see if that solves problems.

Sounds like you know what you are doing, you have to keep troubleshooting. No way around it.

 

[LostHiWay]

wow that pretty much sucks.

Was that click you heard more of a click or pop? I'm guessing if it was a click maybe the hard drive is going bad. If it sounded more like a pop I would say it's a power issue. Maybe the outlet that it's plugged into is bad and frying stuff in the PSU or MB (or both)

well have fun

 

[olds]

The outlet now has a Tripplite line conditioner on it. My second machine ran on that outlet for two weeks (1 week with conditioner) while I waited for the RMA mobo. I had an IBM HHD that had the "click of death", this dosen't sound like that, it's a single click. There was a power issue that caused the ps to go bad. Everytime anything 220 volt started in my home, the computer would shut off. My second computer didn't have the problem. I am going to borrow a HDD from my brother and do a fresh install of windows on it and subsitute it for my HDD. I guess I should go to the Maxtor site and see if they have a utility to check my existing HDD.
Thanks for the input.

 

[Evadman]

sounds like you blew a Cap. notice any bas smells after that "pop"?

Your memory might be fried. that would mess with the posting, and cause the problems you have with the folders.

 

[olds]

No smell and I see no signs of spark, smoke, swelling, etc. I am going to go over it with a magnyfing glass cm by cm.

The board has to be fried. I took it out of the case, set it up on a non conductive surface and fired it up with CPU, HSF, RAM and Video Card. It wouldn't post and no video signal. No error beeps. I could hear two very faint, very fast clicks come from the case speaker. In fact, I got out a stethoscope to be sure. I shut down, reset CMOS and pulled video card. Started, no error beeps. Shut down, reset CMOS, pulled RAM, restarted, no error beeps. :disgust: