Motherboard/BIOS Problem

[golfnguy]

I have a home-built PC with an ABIT KG7 motherboard and an AMD Athlon 1.33GH Socket A CPU. Everything was running fine until I decided to add another hard drive. When I opened the case, I noticed that it was very dusty inside. I used my vacuum cleaner's hose with a plastic head to suck out the dust. I used it around the motherboard and the various PCI cards. Afterwards I installed the second hard and turned on my PC. All of the fans, components and monitor fired up, but I get nothing displayed on my monitor and no beeps. I checked al of the seatings, connections, etc.

The BIOS appears not to be working any longer. Could I have killed the motherboard while cleaning inside my PC? Is there some way I can check to see if my motherboard is still working? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[jmatt]

Remove your memory & put back in .

 

[Slogun]

If that mobo has a BIOS chip that is seated in a socket, make sure it is pushed in all the way. Perhaps the vacuum unseated it.

Failing that try a BIOS post test with minimal components installed.
Disconnect EVERYTHING except CPU/fan, video card, RAM (NO drives, floppy, sound, PCI cards, etc).

 

[Budman]

2 words for you, Static electricity.

That's why you should NEVER use a vaccum cleaner to take the dust out of a pc,that's what they sell canned air for.

You probably fried a component.

 

[golfnguy]

FYI. I rechecked all seating, connections, etc. and replaced the ribbon cable to the hard drives. Nothing appeared loose, but one of these corrected my boot problem as the PC now boots as normal. I haven't put the old ribbon cable back on to see if that was the problem or not. I'll try that after I get the new hard drive set up.

Thanks to those who replied.

PS. Won't be using a vacuum cleaner in the future! 🙂)