Help, system won't post

[meltdown75]

Hi all. I hope I can get some assistance although I don't know what the frick is going on.

My system was working fine last night, and all last week. Tonight when I got home, I hit the power switch and nothing. No beeps, no monitor action - just the drives whizzing away and a blank screen. It did this about 2 weeks ago too - same thing. I tore it down and rebuilt it, thinking I fixed the problem by adding another motherboard mounting screw where there was none before, but obviously my problem is back.

Here are the things I have tried:

- reset CMOS
- tried another CMOS battery
- tried another working AGP card
- tore down the system to just ram, cpu & vid card

All to no avail. No post. I'm dying here ... this happed a week ago, in the morning, and all I did was wiggle the monitor cable and retry and it booted. So needless to say I tried that too - as well as wiggling the card around etc. Nothing works. Please someone help. Thanks.

 

[meltdown75]

Well, I guess I'll just tear it down again & rebuild it, hoping along the way I trigger something that will make the damn thing post.

 

[meltdown75]

Is it possible that a short would cause this behaviour?

Where are all the good samaritans?

 

[Toro 45]

What power supply are you using? I assume it's the computer in your "budget rig" link?

 

[meltdown75]

Yes, that's the system. The power supply is a new Coolmax C400B, 400Watter. With what I have in my system, I was sure that it would be more than enough.

Well I just took er down and removed the mobo tray. The first thing I am going to try is removing all of the little steel things from the mobo backplate. Perhaps one of them was getting into one of the ports and shorting something out. Gotta try something. I am on the wife's laptop so feel free to chat away. I appreciate the response!!

 

[meltdown75]

It's back on and I'm never shutting it down. Problem solved.

 

[Feep]

try the monitor on a different comptuer, it sounds like the cable may be crappy and you are only sometimes getttign a decent connection

 

[Mrvile]

Wait if it's just the monitor wouldn't it still post, just not show anything on the screen?

 

[meltdown75]

yeah it would still post i think, without the monitor. you would at least hear a beep assuming your video card is good right? in my case i wasn't even getting a beep. anyway the monitor is an NEC Multisync 70 which is approx. 5 years old. maybe this monitor has just seen its last days. Running it @ 85hz.. perhaps i should switch to 75?

up & running fine for now...

 

[Feep]

I thought you said you heard the drives moving?

 

[meltdown75]

- the drives were powered, both CDRW and IDE
- all fans were powered
- video card hsf was on
- green light on mobo was on (of course hehe)

But no beep. If it beeps once then I'm golden and everything posts & boots just fine. At any rate, it's up and running now and I haven't shut it down yet. Everything will be fine until I decide to try to shut down and cold boot it. Then it may or may not post, depending on how it feels that day. I don't know what would cause this behaviour, any ideas?

 

[Feep]

bad psu or bad MB'

I'd say MB, but who knows

 

[meltdown75]

bad MBs that are 2 months old suck.