Help Please- you guys know what your talking about

[NotoriousTAT]

thank you all in advance for your input. I know this might not be the right forum but I'm sure you guys know better than any one what I should do.

My original set up was amd 1800xp - k7s5a - 512mb pc2100 (256mb - PNY and crucial) - geforce 4t 4200 - 40gb 7200rpm - 2x DVD-RW - 16x DVD - 16x CD-RW. I had no problems with my system since i put it together until about 1 month ago. While I was in the process of ripping and burning a dvd the screen went black, yet the 2 case fans and processor fan continued to spin at full speed. (although the video card fan did not) I tired to revive the computer with no luck. So then I tried to reset it and there still was no response... so I tried the power button... still no response. I could'nt get it to turn off until I used the power supply button.
I gave it about two hours and when I came back to turn the power back on, the computer imediately went back to the same state, ( no screen - Fans spinning) none of the drive lights or anything flashed.
After posting some questions on this forum, I tried some troubleshooting.
1) I opend the case and looked for any noticable damage
2) I checked all connections
3) I put in all new IDE cables
4) I used a cold cathode to check the 2 and 4 pin power connectors (they all worked)
5) I replaced the video card with an older but still working geforce 3
6) I put a friends Athlon 1400 processor in my computer. ( still did the same thing)

I did all of those tasks one by one and they yielded the exact same results.--- Case fan and processor fan spins at full speed --- video card fan does not---- and no led's light up on any of the cd drives, floopy drives, or hard drive.

Afterr discussing the problem with many people in the forum I was ultamitely led to buying a new mother board. I choose the ECS K7VTA3 and when I installed it about a week ago the SAME THING HAPPEN... the only diference was that I can turn on and off the computer from the button in the front. Besides that no change.

I leave for school in about two weeks and I have to get this computer fixed. I dont have much money so Please give many any suggestions you can... tell me what I need to buy so I can avoid wasting money on any more components that work fine already.
Thank you all very much for your help.

 

[N2comps]

check the power supply's motherboard connector (the 20-pin molex plug) with a multi-tester.
The wiring pattern can usually be found in the mobo manual.

most likely, that's the problem...

Unless, and it very well could be, the RAM is preventing system initialization.
So also try your friends RAM and see if it makes a difference.
While you're at it, swap the video card as well.

you've swapped boards, the CPU, cables, and still have a prob...
so i see it as 3 things remaining, borrowing your pal's stuff for testing would surely help.

but me, i'd try swapping the PSU first.

 

[rbhawcroft]

sounds like your harddisk may be screwed ie the bios starts but doesnt get far enough as it detects the HDD is broken and you dont get a manufacturers screen, or it is the power maybe one of the regulators in it went and you arent getting a stable enough power supply for the CPU, you really need to take it to a shop, anyway how can you be poor if you are ripping DVDs off all the time for your school mates?

 

[rbhawcroft]

actually i read your post properly this time maybe its the processor, if the fans arent dependant on boot up then they would spin, if the voltage is screwed then the GPU shouldnt work and you shouldnt have got the black screen, i bet its your cpu, eith via a voltage surge or a manuf fault, or sth like that, maybe the DVD player forces too much voltage backwards into the IDE cable?

 

[NotoriousTAT]

Ok fair enough... I will take apart me and my friends computer tomarrow to test those possibilities. Thank you I'll check the hard drive. and then the power supply. Thankyou

 

[bizmark]

(wrong forum but I'll help anyway)

Couple of things to check:

-Remove all other peripheral cards (sound card, ethernet, TV tuner, DVD decoder, Firewire/USB 2.0, etc.).
-RAM (as mentioned above) - just put in one stick, then try the other stick.
-Power supply (as mentioned above) - just try a different one. It may not be powerful enough, so do the next step:
-Find a cheap PCI Graphics card and try it instead of an AGP card.
-Unplug ALL of your IDE devices (CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RW, and HDD's) and try to boot from a floppy (get a friend to make a boot disk). Then try to boot from a CD-ROM (should be doable with any OS CD), with just one optical drive plugged in. Use either the DVD or the CD-RW (or both and swap them out), not the DVD-RW.