Fault finding problems

joki · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:18

Hi

My parents have a system which has just gone totaly dead. I have been going through the system methodically trying to find what the problem is. There is power getting to the mainboard as the led is on, I have plugged in another power supply and tried that to no avail. I have disconnected every component possible and moved the ram modules to different slots but still nothing.

Does anyone have any idea? I am leaning towards it being the graphics card, but I cannot check it with another as its agp and mine is pcie. The only one i have is an old voodoo 2 will this work? the spec is

abit nf7s v2 mobo
barton 2500
sapphire 9800 graphics
corsair value pc 3200 256mb X2
samsung spin point 80gb sata

Any help would be much apreciated

masterk · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:34

Have you tried it with each of the memory sticks in by themselves? Or some spare memory?

joki · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:37

i have moved the memory which is in there about but i havent got any other memory to try. I dont think that both memory modules would be broken though would they?

masterk · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:40

I was thinking it may be just one, but if you have tried them seperately by themselves it seems its not the memory.

Also the 4-pin 12 volt hasnt fallen out has it?

joki · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:49

No, ive tried another psu as well but still nothing. Do u know if the system will fire up without a graphics card?

masterk · 18 Jul 2006 at 16:54

You would probably get no further than post but if you get a few beeps thats shows some hope.

joki · 18 Jul 2006 at 19:10

anyone else have any ideas?

Corasik · 18 Jul 2006 at 19:20

Does the CPU fan twitch when you try to poweron, or is it totally unresponsive to the power button?

The system should beep with no memory, and no graphics card installed (assuming you have the PC speaker plugged in, no beeps from the soundcard).

Unplug the hard drives,cdrom drives etc, so that rules out any short circuits from bringing the powersupply up. So basically you have a PSU, a motherboard, and a CPU. (And PC speaker)

Powering this up should give you some POST beeps. If the CPU fan powers up when you press on, but there are no beeps, then either the motherboard, or cpu have failed (probably the motherboard)

If nothing happens at all, it may be worth doing a full cmos reset. Unplug the battery, disconnect the ATX power cables between PSU and motherboard, and then find the cmos clear jumper. Clear the cmos, then replace jumper to normal position, replace battery, and reconnect the power cables.

Then try and power it up. at the very least the cpu fan should come on, and hopefully you'll get some beeps. If there are still no beeps but the cpu fan does come on, try a stick of ram, and a graphics card.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.