pc died, pls help

[drew10591]

I setup my new rig 2 days ago and everything ran fine until last night. i was playing a game alt-tabbed out of it to go eat. came back and forgot it was still running so i started installing another game. i then saw that i still had the first game running so i went in to exit it. clicked the exit game button and my comp froze. i gave it a few minutes and i still couldnt alt-tab or ctrl-alt-delete out so i held the power button in to shut it off. about 3 seconds after it shut off i press the button to turn it on, the fans started up but i got no video and there were no beeps. I tried each stick of ram by itself with just the cpu and video card connected. I tried a different PSU and got the same result. i unfortantly dont have another cpu mobo or video card so i can isolate those. didn't know if any one had a similiar thing happen or any ideas.
thanks ahead
here's my stuff
CPU- amd athlon 64 3200+ venice core
Video card- connect3d x800xl
Mobo- chaintech vnf4 ultra zenithVE
PSU- antec smartpower 2.0 400 watt
ram- pqi ddr 400 2x512

 

[flippe]

Could be either the cpu or the video card, kinda hard to tell, it really sucks when this happens, happend to me a couple years ago, and I had no clue if it was my hd, video card, cpu or what. The only way to truly tell cheaply is to get a pci video card or sumthin and try dat out. That's the only way I can think of without having to pay for some expensive technician to do it or pay for a new agp card. If you still dont get a post or anything with the pci card then its obviously the cpu and if you do get post its your vid card.

 

[drew10591]

well i was able to get a video card to try it and still nothin. could it also be the motherboard or is it defiantly the cpu? thanks

 

[flippe]

I doubt its the mobo, it always the last thign to go in this case. If you can, see if a freind own an amd64 cpu and see if that will post.

 

[daveybrat]

I doubt its the mobo, it always the last thign to go in this case. If you can, see if a freind own an amd64 cpu and see if that will post.

flippe, how many pc's have you repaired in your life?? I repair pc's for a living and the mobo is NOT the last thing to go, it's almost always the first to go. I've only had maybe 3 bad cpu's in my time and have had dozens and dozens of bad motherboards i've replaced. I'd bet it's his motherboard, not his cpu. (i have never replaced a bad P4 or Athlon64 cpu yet)

 

[flippe]

Well lets say in MY CASE then that I've seen more cpu's go than mobos, i've always gotten solid mobos but lemon cpu's. I'm so sorry I didn't take a poll that has ever ones results before saying that. I BEG FOR MERCY MASTER, PLEASE SPARE ME!!!!!! :'(

 

[drew10591]

it doesn't look like ill be able to get either a motherboard or cpu to pinpoint it. Is there anything that might make me lean towards one or the other or should i just send them both back?

 

[flippe]

If you can RMA botch, go for it, that way if theres an issue with both you get quality stuff back.

 

[drew10591]

ya, i'm going to just rma both of them, thanks for your help.

 

[angrycomputer]

clear the cmos

 

[Merovingian]

yeah clear the cmos if you have not already.

 

[drew10591]

yep i did that as well.

 

[dbuttcheek69]

ok this happened to me last night at a LAN actually.

luckily i had 12 guys to help me.

it was the exact same problem as you.

what you need to do is take out your mobo, stick electrical tape on the standoffs for the mounts, and remount it. somewhere on your board some metal is coming into contact with other metal just right so that its short circuiting somehow. I know, random, but hey, it happened to me and i didnt do anything either. try that before you RMA anything.

post back on progress.

 

[drew10591]

lol, well i shipped it out after work today. last night i set up a running system outside the case. Put the mother board on top of the box it came in, with video card, cpu (heatsink on ofcourse), ram in and plugged in the PSU. Shorted out the power switch pins with a screw driver. Fans started up and still nothing. So unfortantly for me i think my Motherboard is just dead. Im glad yours worked out for you and thanks for the tip.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

Eh, I have also have many of the same random problems as this...always just took everything out of the case, reseated everything and left it out of teh case to make sure it was working...I used to have a really beat to hell case that shorted things randomly, after I figured it out the first time it was always just repetition afterward, lol. GL with your RMA sorry to hear it didn't work out so well for your stuff... Make sure there are no shorts and everything before you get going so this doesn't happen again.

 

[drew10591]

well i ended up RMAing just my motherboard because i could get it back in about 2 days. instead i exchanged it for a different motherboard. An epox 9npa ultra. well hooked it up worked great for 2 days. was playing a game all night, got tired went to bed. got up the next morning got on the computer and 5 minutes later my friend asked me if i wanted to play the same i was playing the night before. about 3 minutes into it my computer froze. i couln't do anything alt-tab, or ctrl-alt-del. so i spent a while trying to figure out what it was. including reinstaling a lot of drivers, reinstaling windows doing virus scans, thought it might be overheating so i tried it while monitoring the temperatures when it froze i restarted and went to cmos to check temps. the cpu was never over 36 degrees celsius. tried other games with the same result. everytime i restarted the computer i got a mschine checksum error and see eventlog for more information. i finally found that and it basically said my computer was't recognizing my cpu and the solution was to update or flash my bios. i dont have a floppy drive so i shut the computer off and was going to get one the next day. after about an hour it had cooled off outside so i was going to try it again. Went to start the computer and no beep and no post. i double checked everything inside the only thing i noticed was that A) my new board has 3 blue LED light one for the ram one for the pci-e port and one for the cpu. the cpu led was not on. it also has a post code of FF which the manual says means:
1)bios chip inserted wrong
2)incorrect bios update version
3)mainboard problem
4)add-on card inserted incorrectly

because my pc will not start i cannot update the bios. could this be a dead cpu? or is it the bios? i just don't understand how it can go fromatleast going to windows and doing everything but playing games to not turning on at all besides fans and the 2 LED lights while being turned off. I'm obviusly at an end as to what to do besides RMA it again.
Sorry its so long and for the spelling errors i had to type fast.
thank you for you help ahead of time.
Drew

 

[deftech]

If you fried another board I would look at p/s. It's the most common component to die (yes I know my research).