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no boot, no post, not much of anything *edit* it continues...

T

trilks

Golden Member
Situation:

I leave for work in the morning, computer is working fine, only app running is F@H (Team Egg Roll, baby). I come home that night, and my computer is not running. No one has touched it all day. The power LED on the front panel is on, but the computer itself is not running. All other devices plugged into the same surge protector are running fine.

I push the power button, and the machine starts to power up for a split second (i.e. the fans begin to spin, the CD-ROM drive lights go on momentarily, the baybus LEDs on the front flash on), but then quits. All this literally happens in less than one second. The PS fans do not begin to spin when I push the power button, but then again, the case/CPU fans only get about a quarter revolution before the power quits. When I push the power button again, nothing happens, unless I turn off the PS, then turn it back on again. Then the same process repeats.

My question: what could cause this? I thought it might be the PS, but the MB is getting power (a LED is lit on the MB, as it always is when the PS is on, even when the machine is not running). Dead processor? I would think its not a HDD, video card, or other PCI card problem, as it would still at least boot up even if those things failed. Could a memory failure cause this too?

Not looking for the exact answer, just needed some suggestions for a start point. Never encountered a problem quite like this before.

Specs:
P4 2.26 running at 2.38Ghz
AOpen mobo with Intel 845g chipset (sorry, not at home so don't remember exact model)
Maxtor 40Gb HDD + WD 40Gb HDD
Corsair XMS 512Mb DDR333
XFX GF4 4200
Lite On DVD
Lite On CD-R
Win XP Pro


Cheers.
 
I would think that the case fans would not care about your components. So, if not even the case fans are spinning, I think your power supply is dead. It probably doesn't take a lot power to light the little led on the mobo so I don't think that is a good indication.

If you have case fans that are connected to the power supply directly and they don't spin, it has to be your power supply.
 
Sounds like the motherboard failures I have been seeing. You get a blink but not much else. You can try taking out all components and re insterting them one at a time but I'll bet your boards bad.
 
update, for anyone who cares...

tried a new power supply, but same result. i will try a different motherboard tomorrow.
 
I've dealt with many a hardware problem/upgrade. Haven't upgraded a motherboard before, though. I hear its great fun...</sarcasm>. I'm sure I'll end up re-installing Windows.
 
Not so with a motherboard switch. There may be board specific drivers that you need, for example, whichever buss drivers you need, via chipset, etc, windows will use default until you install. Otherwise, you'll need to add any onboard devices such as sound or lan but other than that, it isn't necessary to install xp again.

Good luck!
 
I thought upgrading/changing your mobo was a big headache with Windows? As per the AT FAQ here, its seems like it will be. I can't boot it up to remove the drivers, either. No matter, I needed a reinstall anyway. Off to the store!
 
Well, a fresh install is the best scenario. I guess since I use gigabyte boards almost exclusively in my boxes I haven't had that much trouble with upgrading or swapping. Hope your shopping goes well!
 
Finally... bought a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro board, definitely an upgrade from my AOpen board. Started up fine, went through POST fine, but couldn't boot Windows. Did a repair install from the Win XP CD, and I'm back in business. I will do a full reinstall anyway, but at least I found and fixed the problem (with a little help from AT tech support...). Thanks!
 
Well, I guess the problem isn't fixed after all...

Ran the new board with a new power supply, and everything was fine for about a day. Then swapped out the new PS for my old one, and everything ran fine for a few hours. I then shut down and switched the master/slave config of my drives. When I tried to boot up after that, the same problem started happening again! Put the new PS back in, same result. Put old mobo back in, same result. Put hard drives back in original configuration, same result.

I was able to get it to run for about 30 seconds on the new mobo before it would die, and was able to get into BIOS. Checked the voltages, and it showed "Vcore : Fail". I also checked out the temps, and the CPU temp was very high, high 70s C, and would climb a degree or two every second until around 84 C, and then the computer would shut off. Heatsink fan was running.

So....now what? Is my new board just defective? Is the CPU dying? I wrestled with this thing all weekend, and I'm not much farther along than when it began.
 
My actual thought here is that your old power supply fried your new board (ie, the root cause of your original failure was actually the power supply), but it's very hard to tell with these things. You could have gotten a *new* bad motherboard, or your CPU might be failing (although that's extremely rare compared to MB/PSU issues). Frankly, I would RMA the new motherboard, toss the old power supply, and if it works properly from here on out, be thankful. 🙂

Also, I recently did a motherboard upgrade with just a repair installation. Works just fine, as long as you properly reinstall the new motherboard drivers and *then* everything else's drivers.
 
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