Strange PC / Motherboard problem

[questforquiet]

Hi,

Having problems with an old system i have (my dad uses it)
It's aN Asus AM2 M2NPV-MX motherboard....

Now about 4 weeks ago when the PC was booted no image would appear on the montior screen. The monitor would just go into power saving mode.

I thought the graphics card was faulty (it wasn't just the PCI-E lane seems faulty) so i removed it and used the inbuild motherboard graphics. It started booting fine again until the other day it when the same problem started. Though this time if you keep on booting eventually it boots up fine.

Now the strange thing is you can tell from the fans if the PC is going to boot fine. If it doesn't all the fans spin at full speed. When it does boot correctly the smartfan control kicks in and the pc boots fine

The case is a Antec NSK 4480B II . I mention the case because last year Antec had to send me a new front panel because the original on/off switch was faulty. The switch playing up again?

So what do people reckon. Motherboard on the way out?

If yes any ideas on a lower power / cheap mother/cpu combo
Only needed to surf the web etc

Thanks

 

[jpod]

Hi I guess it's an intermittent problem, so I am thinking reseat all the parts, you may have a poor contact. Reseat memory and all the power cables.

I think you ruled the graffics card out so that leaves memory, PSU and MB.

Do you have a speaker on the MB so you can identify the beeps?

There is a great thread for trouble shooting here:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18281472

I don't know how much memory you have but if you can try running with one stick and then the other it could be an intermittent fault with a memory module.

Finally post more details of your PC spec and I am sure a more knowledgeable forum member will be along in a bit, best of luck

 

[decto]

Hard to say what it is, could be the PSU for example. Reducing the load by removing the discrete GPU may have helped in the short term.

As you can tell something by the fans, it seems like a POST issue where the bios does not correctly initialise. Can you boot to a CD rom and use an ISO of memtest 86 etc to check for stability.

If you want the cheapest option, you could almost directly replace the mobo. This one Asrock N68C-S will take AM2 or AM3 chips, DDR2 or DDR3 with AM3 though does only have two Dimm sockets for each type. A very cheap board, I have one in my home server.... no issues at all.

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