PC Powers On, CPU Fan Spins, No Beep, No Video

[larrytucaz]

I have an Acer AM5100/U5201A AMD 64 x2 4400+ 2.3GHz/2G RAM computer that was working fine and then one day, out of nowhere, it goofed up. It powers on, but there is no video, it doesn't beep, and I don't hear the hard drive doing anything as best as I can tell. However, the power light on the PC comes on and the CPU & power supply fans are spinning.

The monitor is fine itself and the connection to the PC is via the built-in on-board video vs a separate video card.

I thought it might be the memory chip, as I recently changed it, but I put the original older chips back in and there was no change. The monitor works fine. Again, though, I also don't hear the hard drive making any noise.

I did do a search for PC troubleshooting, but (a) I don't know what "posting" means and (b) I didn't find anything with respect to "beep count" if your beep count is 0.

It's not very upsetting as this is a computer I bought for $15 WITH the 22" LCD (and other things, like 2 garden hoses and a large oscillating fan, at a yard sale), however, it was perfect for my wife to have something that was nonetheless decent.

Tips? I did theorize that maybe it's the video, but then, often times with PCs that have issues I've read advice about connecting your monitor through the built-in video vs the expansion card having a video card mounted, but in this case, it's the built-in video I'm using.

 

[frostedflakes]

If you're not getting a beep sounds like motherboard isn't even POSTing. I suspect it probably isn't the video. Even if onboard video is bad, it should still complete POST and beep, you should hear hard drive activity when it's booting up into Windows, etc.

Maybe bad power supply, bad motherboard, or bad CPU? Probably very unlikely it's the CPU, though. If you have a multimeter handy you could maybe try checking the voltages on individual PSU rails (+3.3V, +5V, +12V, etc.) and make sure none look out of whack. Although I think a while back I had a bad PSU on a family member's PC and voltages all looked fine but replacing PSU got the system going again (symptoms were similar I believe to what you were seeing so I originally thought it was bad motherboard). So if there is a problem with the PSU might not necessarily show up in the voltage readings.

You could also visually inspect the motherboard and make sure that none of the capacitors appear to be bulging/leaking. Again just because the board may look fine doesn't necessarily mean it's not bad. But if there are capacitors on it that are bulging and/or leaking electrolyte, might indicate that motherboard is the problem.