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no POST beeps

rh71

rh71

No Lifer
I'm posting on my laptop... desktop (WIN XP) just died... Was just watching a divx file... then all of a sudden, complete freeze. No response with ctrl-alt-delete, no mouse movement, no keyboard keys work. I had to hit the reset button on the tower. But nothing... no POST beeps at all and the video is blank.

I've got 3 HDDs and so I left my primary master plugged in and unplugged all others. The harddrive (Maxtor) doesn't seem to make the power up sound. I plug my slave drive (Western Digital) as master and it makes the power up sound, but still no POST beeps. I try the 3rd drive, also a Maxtor and don't hear a power up sound (maybe that's normal)... still no beeps.

I try every combination of the 2 RAM sticks, leaving 1 RAM, leaving no RAM... nothing changes, no POST beeps.

Any leads ? What usually could cause a complete freeze like that ? Video card ? HDD crash ? RAM problem somehow ?

Video card is an ATI 9800 Pro .. fan on it still spins... it's about 1.5 years old.
 
All of those would crash the system, obviously.

Disconnect all hdd's, optical drives, anything connected to USB/firewire, kb and mouse, sound card, graphics card, all pci cards.
Disconnect everything from psu except the mobo/cpu.
What happens when you switch on?
 
When the computer is plugged in, does it turn on by itself, or do you need to hit the power button? If it does turn on by itself, can you turn it off using the power button? Sounds like the motherboard or processor.
 
Originally posted by: iTWoRxbRo
When the computer is plugged in, does it turn on by itself, or do you need to hit the power button? If it does turn on by itself, can you turn it off using the power button? Sounds like the motherboard or processor.
Click to expand...
no it doesn't turn on by itself. I have to use the power button everytime.
 
Originally posted by: montag451
Disconnect all hdd's, optical drives, anything connected to USB/firewire, kb and mouse, sound card, graphics card, all pci cards.
Disconnect everything from psu except the mobo/cpu.
What happens when you switch on?
Click to expand...
No beeps. I disconnected (no HDDs, no PCI/AGP cards... no beeps... but all lights and fans that are supposed to go on, do.

Before that I tested another AGP video card and no beeps either.

Mobo is an Abit NF7-S rev2. Anything else ?
 
Looks like a bad CPU, secondly a dead MOBO.
I would break the system down to bare essentials, ie, mobo, cpu, ram, vid, reseat everything and try and get a basic POST. If you can't do that, then try a different CPU, ideally, if you could borrow one from another geek.
 
strange. i'd try another power supply also to cross that component off the list. what type of PSU is it?

unfortunately, the last time i had a no POST beep situation, i ended up buying a new mobo. still trying to get Asus to send me RMA info too :roll:
 
alright, some more progress... I have another machine (let's call it TOWER-OLD) sitting around with another slightly slower AMD chip (CPU-OLD) / Asus A7V mobo (MOBO-OLD) in it. The down machine (TOWER-NEW) is a faster AMD chip (CPU-NEW) so the chips are interchangeable between towers.

- it's definitely not the PSU (Thermaltake 420W)... TOWER-OLD's PSU had the same no-beep result in TOWER-NEW... so it's still either the mobo or cpu. TOWER-NEW's PSU does beep TOWER-OLD (with CPU-OLD)... it beeped 1-long, 3-short, but I didn't have anything else connected... no big deal... at least it POSTed. This says the current PSU is still good.

- swapped CPU-OLD into TOWER-NEW (my downed box)... to test MOBO-NEW.. it DOESN'T POST. (CPU-OLD did POST in its original TOWER-OLD a few minutes prior, so the CPU-OLD is known to be good). This result suggests MOBO-NEW is bad.

- threw CPU-NEW onto MOBO-OLD... no POST either... this suggests CPU-NEW is also bad.

- threw back in CPU-OLD into MOBO-OLD... (the original config)... it again POSTs.. this time also using PSU-NEW.

But I don't understand how both the CPU-NEW and MOBO-NEW can be bad... 😕 Does that happen often... when one goes, it takes the other with it ?

These 2 chips are interchangeable on mobos aren't they ? Sockets fit perfectly. One is a Barton 2800+ and the older one is a 1.0GHz T-bird.
 
I'm seeing from here that they aren't exactly interchangeable. Only the older CPU can go on the newer Abit... and when that happened, it still didn't POST. So would you guys agree it's the MOBO that's dead ? Any other ideas ?
 
Mobo would be the consensus, I think - the thread is getting a bit more esoteric as each post comes on.
But, that doesn't rule out the cpu being dud as well as, or either.
Sorry - can't be more help than that without being there and using my divining rod.
 
well I did the Abit RMA but who knows when that's going to get here (even with the cross-ship). I hit up MicroCenter and got the NF7-S2G (slightly newer) on refurbished for $60 and I'm back up and running now... so it was definitely the mobo. The CPU is still good.

Thanks for the help in my first big 'WTF' crisis.
 
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