Ill try to keep it concise I have come to my parents'. A while back they had a lightning strike somewhere on their property. The PC stopped working. Wish I could give a better description but I wasnt here and my dad is very non-tech.
It has been assumed up until now that there was a power surge up the phone line, through the ISDN modem, and then via the USB socket the mobo got fried. (Hopefully someone will tell me its not possible to fry anything via USB, that will help narrow down.) The reason this was assumed was that firstly the phone line was down for a few days and secondly, when it came back up, he could no longer get online even hooking up the ISDN modem to his laptop. The phone company had to come replace the modem.
I'm here now and want to bring the desktop back to life. I started it up and the only symptom seemed to be that there was no picture. Inside the case all fans came on, including those on the cpu etc. The little light on the mobo was on as well.
I wondered if simply the vid card had died. Fortunately, I have the entire inside of my own system with me, so I stuck my 6600GT in there. Still no picture.
Ill try to make it as short as possible while keeping all info in. After the vid card swap, I replaced everything. Put my Asus (forget model) mobo, Athlon 64, Ram, everything. It was now actually my PC, not his. It was in his case. Also, and this may or may not be it, it was still his PS in there.
Anyway, you guessed it, no picture. Dell 2001FP has power fine. VGA cable is hooked to D-sub connector on back, but on D-sub channel on screen it just goes to standby like theres no signal.
To eliminate the monitor and cable I hooked my laptop to the monitor's D-sub connector and can get dual screen just fine. (In case youre wondering, I am using a VGA cable with DVI adapter with the 6600GT that is DVI since I have no DVI cable here. Im sure the adapter is not a problem though because the output on my laptop is also DVI, so the cable/adapter is definitely working.)
This is where I got a little baffled. All components replaced, monitor and cable confirmed working, still no picture? Wow.
So my attention goes to the PS. And my understanding of PS stuff is limited. I know there are different lines and things carrying different voltages and that different parts of the PC use different lines. So I was wondering if the AGP slot uses a certain voltage line exclusively or something and if that line has died in the PS. Anyway, long story short, I picked up a new PS. I was convinced this would do it, but no.
So now absolutely everything in the box is changed. It is literally a different PC that has the exact same problem.
Any thoughts?
I could make some guesses that I feel might be logical, but i really dont understand the power side of things. Could it be that though the ISDN modem was fried during the storm, this is not where the power got into the case? Could it be that it also went up the power cable and damaged the PS in a specific way. In a way where it still gives power to the system (hence fans and lights still on), but it gives too much power on all or certain lines and fries stuff? And hence when I replaced everything with my stuff but kept that PS in there I fried my components too giving me the same problem?
This is just a guess though so please give me your thoughts. The only other thing I myself could think of is that my stuff got damaged in my suitcase on the plane and I now get the exact same problem of fans working, lights on, but no picture. But that would be very coincidental in my view. And I packed my stuff very well with bubble wrap, foam etc.
Edit: System is now completely bare. No drives or cards connected. Just mobo, CPU, graphics, ram, PSU.
Also, unfortunately this case has no PC speaker so I cant listen for any error code beeps
Thanks for any help,
Kind regards,
WowMissionToRegister.
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