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Stumped by strange issue

J

jonny13

Senior member
I am doing some work on a friends computer that up and died one day. The fans still run, the HD seems to work, but no video. So, first thing I do is to replace the onboard video with an AGP card. Nothing.

Next, I swap out the RAM with some from a working build....nothing.
Then I try a different power supply...nothing.
So, I figured, must be a motherboard or something. I order a new one....nothing.
Stumped and without a CPU to try, I order one off the forums for $40. Just got that today and gave it a try...nothing.

I have swapped out every piece of equipment, unhooked all peripherals including drives and modem, and still cannot get it to output video. I have no idea what else it could be. I even tried the old MB outside the case sitting on an antistatic bag and didn't get it to work. Any ideas?
 
does any of the stuff from your friends computer work in another one ? video card,memory, hard drive, does the monitor work on another pc? what was he doing when it died?
 
The video was onboard on his computer, so I can't test that. The memory works just fine in the computer I'm typing on and the monitor is my main monitor, so that works as well. The only thing I can think of is that his MB died and the new motherboard I got to replace it is DOA. But, does a blown MB even power up? Any other ideas?
 
shoot man now you got me scatching my head. never had this happen. is the power supply putting out the proper voltage. ? it could be a bad board , how hard to get another one i mean did you newegg it or buy it local so its easy to replace ?. i would do that one more time i mean that board was no good anyway so you can replace it.

good luck with it. wish i could be of more help!.
 
Have you checked closely to see if it is grounding to the case? Did you try both boards outside the case? possible that you got 2 bad boards.
 
Have you checked closely to see if it is grounding to the case? Did you try both boards outside the case? possible that you got 2 bad boards.
 
I can't remove the vid drivers since I can't even get it to post. Also, I checked both boards outside of the case as I was thinking of a possible ground as well, but still nothing. I am going to RMA the motherboard for another and see if that does the trick. If that still doesn't work, then I am going to throw in the towel. I have never had a case like this.
 
Has anybody had a bad mobo before? Does it even power up or I suppose it depends on what is blown? I can't believe his mobo would fail and then my replacement from newegg would be DOA, but stranger things do happen. I will RMA the board and see if a new one works.
 
A bad mobo can power up but give no video. Your issue is very strange indeed. I assume you did, but did you try the onboard video on both the new and old board as well as a working video card in each?

Also, some motherboards if they are too old only accept AGP 1x or AGP 2x video cards so just because it may have an AGP slot doesn't mean all AGP cards will work in it.

What about a PCI video card?
 
Yeah, I first tried the onboard video on both mobo's. Then I pulled out my video card from computer and tried that in both mobo's with both CPU's that I have. Also did the same thing in and out of the case with 2 different power supplies. So, the only thing I can tell is that I have either 2 bad CPU's or 2 bad mobo's.
 
Did you figure out what it was? I'm very curious.

Couple of other things it could be, the new motherboard might need a bios update to work with the CPU you are using but that probrably isn't what it is.

Also I've heard of bad PSU's frying motherboards so if you used the old PSU with the new motherboard it could have fried it so that even when you tried the new PSU it wouldn't work.
 
Well, I ended up RMAing the second MB and the third one worked perfectly. I installed everything and gave it back to the guy but it did the same thing within a few days. No video or anything again. So, I RMAed that board. The next one worked great right off the bat but I replaced the PSU before doing anything since I started to think that the PSU was causing these issues. I installed everything again and it has been running just fine for the past 6 weeks.

So, it looks like a bad PSU was causing shorts and frying motherboards. I also had at least one DOA during that time. Overall, it was one of the worst fixes that I have ever worked on.
 
Youch! I feel you pain. Glad everything is back up and rinning!

You sound like you know the computers inside and out, and this was just a horror story, but anyone reading might consider the following paragraph before spending hours and hours and buying replacement parts without knowing for sure the problem. It saves a lot of time and frustration.

I have been building my own computers for years and feel I'm a pretty good at fixing my own problems. But when asked by friends and neighbors go help them fix problems with weird symptoms, my luck has been poor. One guy had a hard drive that that wouldn't work. I tried for hours - different computer, different cables, checking for bad pins, looking for physical damage, even followed Internet advice to put it in the freezer - no dice. The next day he took it to a local computer store and they got it copied to a new drive for $50 (+ cost of new drive) later that day. I have no idea what they did. Another guy had a problem that every time you booted something else bad whould happen. I swapped video, memory, reseated every thing - nothing. He took it to one and got a new MB (including getting Windows updated with driver, etc.) Now when people ask me if I can help with something weird, I refer to them to 1 of 2 local shops that I know. The 4 people have sent have all been very happy. YMMV
 
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