PC died - Trying to figure out which part is broken - Advice needed please

Sammanu · 27 Jun 2011 at 12:56

If you buy some new RAM, please post back the results ASAP...

Thanks

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:01

Mattus said:
When you connected up the new motherboard/PSU - you did remember to plug both power cables into the motherboard, right? Both the big rectangular one and the smaller 4- or 8-pin one?

Sorry if this seems obvious, but people do forget the smaller one sometimes!

Yeah I made sure both them wires are connected on both motherboards.

I prob been building PC's now for over 12 years or something, I have a massive family, and I'm usually the one that builds the PC's for everyone and also usually the one they come to to fix laptops and PC's...not trying to sound arrogant, just saying. Thanks for replying though mate!

Thats why I'm so thrown this time round, because I tried all the obvious stuff first like PSU and HDD and then from then onwards I've pretty much gone through a whole checklist of things and ruled out everything.

Between everything everyone in this thread has told me to do, plus the stuff I was trying myself already, I feel like between us, we've [pretty much covered everything.

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:03

have you managed to track down a speaker yet?

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:03

Sammanu said:
If you buy some new RAM, please post back the results ASAP...

Thanks

Gona go try get some in about an hour, but going to gym after been to that shop where I got CPU from yesterday, so wont be back till around 5...just letting you guys know, so I'll reply back probably around 6 this evening.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:04

paradisiac said:
have you managed to track down a speaker yet?

Am going to see if I can buy today from that shop mate, when I go to get a stick of ram, I'll buy a speaker at same time.

BTW what is the name of those speaker things?

Do I just say "Am wanting to buy a speaker that plugs into motherboard please" and they'll know what I mean?

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:06

that will be a big help, hopefully it will beep like mad with old ram and post with new ram

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:07

SkScotchegg said:
Am going to see if I can buy today from that shop mate, when I go to get a stick of ram, I'll buy a speaker at same time.

BTW what is the name of those speaker things?

Do I just say "Am wanting to buy a speaker that plugs into motherboard please" and they'll know what I mean?

yeh they should know what you mean. think they are just case/motherboard speakers, dont know if they have an official name.
they used to come with new motherboards but in my experience they tend to come with cases now instead.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:10

paradisiac said:
yeh they should know what you mean. think they are just case/motherboard speakers, dont know if they have an official name.
they used to come with new motherboards but in my experience they tend to come with cases now instead.

Alright cheers, well like I say, I'll go see if I can buy both, and then post back tonight probably before 6 and let you guys know how I get on ASAP.

HNR1 · 27 Jun 2011 at 17:19

I tell yee it's cursed and we are all doomed, literally

I think you are going to be very unlucky to have every stick of ram go bad, i've never known it.

On the original mobo it has an inbuilt speaker, page 11/12 of mobo manual http://downloadmirror.intel.com/15991/eng/DG45ID_ProductGuide01_English.pdf

Mattus · 27 Jun 2011 at 17:44

SkScotchegg said:
I prob been building PC's now for over 12 years or something, I have a massive family, and I'm usually the one that builds the PC's for everyone and also usually the one they come to to fix laptops and PC's...not trying to sound arrogant, just saying. Thanks for replying though mate!

Sorry, didn't mean to teach your grandmother to suck eggs... just wanted to check!

This really is quite an odd one. Four sticks of RAM going bad at once seems impossible, unless your mobo somehow died and overvolted them or something. Hopefully the mobo speaker will help you narrow things down and shed some light on proceedings.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 18:49

Just starting on it again now, I managed to get both the ram and the speakers so I'll try both setups again and see if I can get it working.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 18:51

Just a question, for your PC to turn on and display some DOS on the monitor screen is all it needs to do that just cpu and ram?

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2011 at 18:54

SkScotchegg said:
Just a question, for your PC to turn on and display some DOS on the monitor screen is all it needs to do that just cpu and ram?

you need :
psu
motherboard (with video out or gfx card)
cpu
ram
monitor

thats it.

Mattus · 27 Jun 2011 at 18:55

Might sometimes also need a CPU fan connected for it to boot, depending on the motherboard and how it's set up.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 19:00

Well the guy above said that my motherboard has a speakers, I've just tried the new ram in old motherboard, didnt make a difference, gona try in new motherboard in a second.

Ya know whats just popped into my head, it sounds like the old mobo is broke because its not beeping and it has onboard speakers and I think its just weird that it doesnt beep no matter what you try, any number of combinations and then what if the new board is faulty also, that would explain everything and also make me not feel like a complete newbie.

Also this heat is killing me these last few days, trying to fix my PC with sweat dropping off my head, I have to keep a towel on standby so I dont get on any of the equipment lol.

paradisiac · 27 Jun 2011 at 19:03

SkScotchegg said:
Well the guy above said that my motherboard has a speakers, I've just tried the new ram in old motherboard, didnt make a difference, gona try in new motherboard in a second.

Ya know whats just popped into my head, it sounds like the old mobo is broke because its not beeping and it has onboard speakers and I think its just weird that it doesnt beep no matter what you try, any number of combinations and then what if the new board is faulty also, that would explain everything and also make me not feel like a complete newbie.

Also this heat is killing me these last few days, trying to fix my PC with sweat dropping off my head, I have to keep a towel on standby so I dont get on any of the equipment lol.

which would lead to the case maybe being the problem and shorting the old and new mobos maybe?
or the psu, unless you tried new psu on the new mobo before trying the old one.

jaybee · 27 Jun 2011 at 19:34

Have you considered it could be your monitor? Try hooking it up to another, or a TV, or atleast verify the display unit you are using is working and can auto detect the signal. Verify the cable is good too.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 19:59

paradisiac said:
which would lead to the case maybe being the problem and shorting the old and new mobos maybe?
or the psu, unless you tried new psu on the new mobo before trying the old one.

I've only tried the new PSU with new mobo, not try the old PSU with new mobo so guess that rules out the PSU shorting the mobo's. What other things can short the mobo, and by short do we me kill like fry the mobo? Like actually brake it?

I really do think both mobo's must be broken, theres no other explanation I can come up with, it would make sense of this whole situation.

When I take the new mobo back on wednesday I'm going to ask him to test it if he doesnt anyway and hopefully he says it doesnt work and then that would confirm this theory.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 20:05

jaybee said:
Have you considered it could be your monitor? Try hooking it up to another, or a TV, or atleast verify the display unit you are using is working and can auto detect the signal. Verify the cable is good too.

Well, on the monitor it says "Check signal cable" and nothing else displays, I do have a button on my monitor you can press and it detects anything connected or switches between multiple things, so for example, if I have xbox 360 and PC connected it will toggle between displaying my desktop or displaying xbox dashboard.

Right now its displaying the xbox dashboard but its not displaying my desktop or the PC at all from bootup.

I've not been able to get anything to display on monitor from PC for 4 days, not even the startup dos info. Like before my monitor would display the intel logo after like 3 seconds and then from that screen would go through some code and then would startup my OS which is windows 7.

Admitetly the only thing I havent changed is the monitor cable that goes from my monitor to the graphics card, but I cant see it being that, but seen as I've tried everything else I guess theres no reason why I cant try one more thing, so I'll try get my mates monitor tomorrow and try his.

Another question, before all this happened I could plug a HDMI cable into my graphics card and output to projector with HDMI and when you turned on the PC you'd even see the startup DOS screens on projector too. So in this situation if I got HDMI cable plugged in from PC to projector then it should be displaying on projector too shouldnt it? So wouldnt that rule out the monitor?

Plus also the fact that it doesnt beep and didnt seem to have any hard drive activity as you would at startup normally.

SkScotchegg · 27 Jun 2011 at 20:07

Mattus said:
Might sometimes also need a CPU fan connected for it to boot, depending on the motherboard and how it's set up.

Yeah I made sure that I always had the CPU fan plugged in and also tried with and without a case fan.

I haven't tried without plugging the CPU fan in though, do you think I should not plug it in and try it without the fan, it would still have the massive heatsink sat on top of CPU so that would be enough to keep it cool wouldnt it?