What happened to my computer? Could someone help?

[Black88GTA]

To start out with, my system is as follows:

Abit KT7-RAID mobo
XP2400+ CPU running at 2.2GHz
Antec TrueBlue 480 PSU
4 hdds (250, 60, 10, 10 gb)
2 optical drives (Lite On CDRW, NEC 2510a DVDRW)
1 Zip drive
1 Floppy drive
Albatron GF4200ti 128mb video card
Creative SoundBlaster live 5.1 platinum w/Live drive
768 MB PC133 ram (256mb, 512mb, both generic)
Linksys NIC
USRobotics ISA modem (hasn't been used in years)
Promise IDE controller card

Yesterday, I left my computer on overnight and went to bed. This morning, it wouldn't come out of standby mode, so I shut it down with the power button. Now, it's all screwed up, and won't work at all. I'm currently writing this on my old P100 laptop .

Now the problems - when I try to power it up, nothing comes up on the screen. Fans spin up, lights come on, hard drives spin up...but optical drives are making a weeee-tick, weeee-tick sound - like they're resetting themselves. The light on the FDD is flashing like a hard disk light, and the optical drive lights are also flashing in abnormal patterns. I unplugged everything I could from the computer - all that's plugged in there now is 1 512MB stick of ram, my GF4200ti video card, PSU and CPU. I tried to boot like that, and the screen flickered like it was about to come on, but went right back to standby mode.

So, I go and get a new PSU (Antec 350w) from Best Buy to trouble shoot. Plugged that in, same deal. After trying to boot a bunch of times, I finally get it to post and get into bios. Voltage rails (on the brand new PSU) are at 1.81 VCore (manually set at 1.8 many moons ago to help with the mild o/c) 3.31 (3.3), 4.83 (5), and 11.76 (12). But...then the screen goes into standby all of a sudden while I'm in the bios. Then when I reset it, it goes right back to not posting. I can get it to POST maybe 1 in 10 times, and I've only gotten it to stay on once. Most of the time after I get into the bios the screen will go into standby after a few mins. I haven't yet gotten it to post with my old PSU.

If I try booting without memory installed, most of the time it stays silent...but every once in a while, it gives a beep code. Same thing if I take the vid card out. Most times when I boot with either of these components missing, it does nothing, but sometimes it beeps the diagnostic code corresponding to what I took out (2 long beeps for memory, 1 long 2 short for vid card). On the rare occasions when it does post, it will beep once, like it always does.

Sorry it was so long. Anyone have ideas? I was thinking it may be the PSU, but it won't really work with the new one either (although it is better than with the old one). Probably not the CPU, as I have gotten it to post a couple times - a fried cpu wouldn't have posted at all. Video card? DOn't know about that either, because the screen shuts down before it even has time to warm up. I don't notice any telltale signs of a bad card either. I don't even have any replacement components here in Evansville to swap and test .

I think the PSU may have gone bad and taken the motherboard with it...I'd just like to hear opinions from others who may know more about this than I do Anyone with any insight PLEASE help! Thanks in advance...

 

[mechBgon]

Did you try setting the CPU to its proper speed and voltage? If you get another chance, it would be the next thing I'd do, but I have a suspicion your motherboard may be failing. Look it over for leaking and/or bulging capacitors, to start with. If you need a new motherboard that takes PC133, your options are getting narrower these days, but you might still find a K7S5A Pro if you look around.

 

[Black88GTA]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Did you try setting the CPU to its proper speed and voltage? If you get another chance, it would be the next thing I'd do, but I have a suspicion your motherboard may be failing. Look it over for leaking and/or bulging capacitors, to start with. If you need a new motherboard that takes PC133, your options are getting narrower these days, but you might still find a K7S5A Pro if you look around.

I was going to try that, but I can't get it to stay in the bios long enough in order to change it. This CPU won't boot under default mobo settings, as the KT7 RAID was only designed to work with up to 1.4 GHz Athlons. (Yes, it's kind of an odd setup . If I were to try to reset the CMOS, I'd have to temporarily drop in a different CPU in order to put the settings where they need to be to run the xp2400. And my Athlon 850 that I used to do this before is 500 miles away from here. Besides - it's been running like this for about a year now, with never so much as a hiccup.

About the leaking/bulging caps - I RMA'd the board about a year ago for that exact problem. In fact, when I was putting my old 1.3 Tbird back on it after getting it back from RMA, I didn't notice the heatsink wasn't properly seated, and fried it - so I bought the 2400+ and never looked back. It's been super stable the entire time - ran a little warm, but not "hot" (50C at idle, 55 full load) and case temps hovered around 42C.

Ideally, what I'd like to find is a board with everything built in that takes PC133 - so I can still use this CPU in a secondary box. If in fact it is my mobo that's bad, I'll probably do an A64 upgrade. Thanks for the reply. Any other suggestions?

 

[oldman420]

try to reset the cmos and if that doesnt do it i bet you have a failing mb
sorry man i have been there i feel for ya
jerome