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Rather complicated computer problem...

My parent's PC has been having a multitude of problems as of late, beginning with their motherboard failing, and Windows BSODing on boot with the replacement motherboard. Because of this, I brought their hard drive into my room and backed everything up.

I hooked the hard drive up to their computer again, connected the CD-RW, etc, and when I turn it on, the hard drive is not detected. So, I try a multitude of IDE cables and jumper settings, and finally, with the right combination, I get the hard drive detected. Good. I then add the CD-RW to the mix. Immediately, the system fails to POST. It turns on, but the screen remains black. So, I pull the power and IDE cable from the hard drive, try a multitude of cables with the CD-RW, and try as I might I cannot get the machine to POST. I then remove the power supply cable and IDE cable from the CD-RW, and the system turns on. Occasionally as well, when the machine will not POST, I remove the power supply cable that connects to the motherboard and place it again, and it boots.

I pulled a 350w Antec power supply from my PC and placed it in theres. The exact same problem occured. I took these pictures of the BIOS while I was using the computer though, and I noticed some definite graphical corruption:

Picture 1
Picture 2


Thanks a lot. By the way, the machine's specs are: Athlon XP 1700+, 256 MB Crucial PC2700, Biostar M7NCD, 20 GB Maxtor, 40x CD-RW, 32 MB Geforce 2 MX, 350w Allied power supply.
 
It might be a long shot but have you tried clearing CMOS? If you want to just remove CMOS battery from the motherboard for a few minutes and then replace it. Just a thought.
 
Sounds like you may have a bad video card or bad replacment motherboard, but I'd guess based on the problems you are describing the replacment motherboard is bad or that other stuff got fried when the bad MB went, if possible I'd test each Peice of the PC in a seperate system to see if you can isolate the problem. Hope this helps... 🙂
 
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