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I have two dead computers, and I'm looking for help

I

Inimical

Member
My parents' computer stopped working out of the blue, so I decided to swap out some parts (from my computer) to figure out what was wrong with it. Eventually I decided it was most likely the motherboard. That's the first dead computer.

The second one, mine, died shortly after the testing, and I'm not sure why. I decided to borrow the stick of ram from my parents computer as they wouldn't be needing it, but once I got it in (taking up the fourth slot in my Shuttle ak31 motherboard) windows wouldn't load. The computer would POST, but it wouldn't load windows. So I took out the last stick, made sure with windows would load like that (which it did) and then I decided to give the fourth stick one last try.

This time it was really hard to get it in for some reason, and my motherboard sort of bent more than it should. This time when I tried to boot up, instead of the usual screen, I got no response from the monitor and a loud beep from the motherboard. When I pulled out the power on my computer, it smelled like something had gotten fried. It shouldn't have been the CPU, as I'd checked earlier that the heat would stay put after I was done swapping out parts, and I hadn't changed anything since then.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

Other things to note:
Both computers are using Shuttle ak31 motherboards, with athlon xp 1700+ cpus.
Now when I plug the power into my computer, fans and things start up but stop abrubtly. I then have to hit the power button to get things going again (previously whenever I plugged the power in the computer would just start up).
I've tried resetting the CMOS on both computers.

If anyone wants any further information about either computers I'd be glad to supply it. I really hope you guys can help me.
 
This time it was really hard to get it in for some reason, and my motherboard sort of bent more than it should.
Click to expand...

that's your problem.
Coulda shorted something on the motherboard....

Are there still any beep codes? If so, what's the pattern in short and long beeps?
 
It seems like my motherboard just has one beep code: it's one long beep, pause, one long beep, pause over and over again. I really hope the motherboard is the only thing broken, as I hate it.
 
It might be high-centered on the notch in the DIMM slot, too. Or perhaps you installed it backwards. At any rate, the presence of a burned smell bodes ill. 🙁 Anyway, welcome to the Forums Inimical, and if you need an economical upgrade, you might consider getting an Asus A7N266-VM, a nice microATX board that's got onboard video, network and sound. Pair that up with a stick of Crucial PC2100 memory and any SocketA processor, preferably an AthlonXP, and you're back on the road.

As for your folks' computer, is it a Happy-Meal computer (eMachine, Dell, Gateway, etc)? Maybe it had a power supply failure, that happened to my dad's eMachine and many others.
 
I built my parents' computer, and it has (had) very similar specs to mine. Athlon xp 1700, my old geforce 2, sblive, and 256 megs of pc2100 ram from crucial. I doubt I could've installed the ram backwards, as it's DDR. At this point I just want some way to know what exactly is broken so I can replace it and get on with my (non)life.
 
I never used their power supply for my computer. Also, my computer only started failing directly after I jammed that stick of ram in there too hard. Is there any chance all my ram got fried somehow, instead of it being the motherboard's fault (or maybe as a result of what I did to the motherboard)?
 
ur f up :/ order a esc board for u and your parents there cheap but good. GL also try newegg referb mobo i got mine for $34 and its great.
 
Sounds sooo familiar... 😱 Anyway, I think you stuck that baby in backwards - trust me I would know. 😱 Your motherboard shouldn't have kinda-sorta bended and it sure shouldn't have required you stick in that RAM real hard. Very easy to do, blows some capicitors if not outright frying the mobo. As for your parents computers it sounds very much like a dead PSU - I had similar incidents... unless that mobo was fried too.
 
It doesn't seem like the PSU is dead, unless the fans would start up and a light on the motherboard would light up with a dead power supply. I guess I'll just have to get a new motherboard, which really isn't too big of a deal.
 
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