Hardware Failure - Same problem on two very different machines

I have an old desktop machine that I use at home which in its day was pretty decent, with 1gig 1066 MHz ram on it, and therefore an old motherboard that supported this technology (all but dead now). Last week the machine simply gave up, everything seemed to switch on fine, the hdd's came on, the DVD drive will open, all the fans are running, BUT there is no screen activity, and the machine does not even start running the boot-up systems, so no BIOS access at all.

I chalked this up to the mobo finally having given up the ghost and started looking for new machine components. However on Monday I moved my 2 hard drives and graphix card across to a newer AMD based pc, reinstalled (repaired) the Windows OS, and I was up and running again by Monday evening. I turned it on again on Tuesday morning to play my music through the system, but as I had not installed the onboard sound drivers, was unable to do this, so just turned it back off.

Tuesday night however was met with the same predicament I had on the last machine, power seams to be going into the system, everything starts up, but no graphix and no boot or BIOS. Must be hard drives or graphix card, but I put the hard drive and graphix card that had originally been in the AMD system back in, and still the same problem. I have spoken to at least 5 different technical people now, and have had suggestions from a virus, to a short on my plugs, but I can’t see how these could cause a board to power up, but do no more than that.

If anyone has any ideas or have had a similar thing happen to them, please let me know.

Thanks

Richard

Body [quote="southsayer"]I have an old desktop machine that I use at home which in its day was pretty decent, with 1gig 1066 MHz ram on it, and therefore an old motherboard that supported this technology (all but dead now). Last week the machine simply gave up, everything seemed to switch on fine, the hdd's came on, the DVD drive will open, all the fans are running, BUT there is no screen activity, and the machine does not even start running the boot-up systems, so no BIOS access at all. I chalked this up to the mobo finally having given up the ghost and started looking for new machine components. However on Monday I moved my 2 hard drives and graphix card across to a newer AMD based pc, reinstalled (repaired) the Windows OS, and I was up and running again by Monday evening. I turned it on again on Tuesday morning to play my music through the system, but as I had not installed the onboard sound drivers, was unable to do this, so just turned it back off. Tuesday night however was met with the same predicament I had on the last machine, power seams to be going into the system, everything starts up, but no graphix and no boot or BIOS. Must be hard drives or graphix card, but I put the hard drive and graphix card that had originally been in the AMD system back in, and still the same problem. I have spoken to at least 5 different technical people now, and have had suggestions from a virus, to a short on my plugs, but I can’t see how these could cause a board to power up, but do no more than that. If anyone has any ideas or have had a similar thing happen to them, please let me know. Thanks Richard[/quote]

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Hi Richard,

It is very unlikely a virus - Is the only thing that got transferred from the old system to the new the graphics card and hard drives?

Try stripping down your system to the bare minimum - motherboard, processor with fan, graphics card if there is no built in one, ram, power and monitor. No hard drives, no optical drives, no usb devices. Try and see if you can get it to the bios.

Also try clearing the bios (there should be a jumper or metal points you can touch with a screw driver to clear). Refer to the motherboard manual on how to do this.

The only things I've known to prevent you reaching the bios are - faults with: graphics card (lack of power, faulty, not inserted all the way or missing)
Ram (faulty, missing, incorrect configuration, incompatible with eachother or the mobo)
Processor (faulty, overheated, missing)
Motherboard (faulty, insufficient or missing power, incompatible, corrupt bios)
HDD (in rare cases a corrupt bootsector or bad jumper settting on a hard drive can cause certain brands of motherboards (e.g. some gigabyte boards) to not even display the bios).

The worst case scenario is that one of your components is faulty and it causes a short or burnout of your motherboard. Power surge is also a possibility. Either of these is unlikely.

It could also be something you have done while putting it together, a loose screw left inside etc. Was the case closed between the last time it worked and when it failed.

Body [quote="David Long"]Hi Richard, It is very unlikely a virus - Is the only thing that got transferred from the old system to the new the graphics card and hard drives? Try stripping down your system to the bare minimum - motherboard, processor with fan, graphics card if there is no built in one, ram, power and monitor. No hard drives, no optical drives, no usb devices. Try and see if you can get it to the bios. Also try clearing the bios (there should be a jumper or metal points you can touch with a screw driver to clear). Refer to the motherboard manual on how to do this. The only things I've known to prevent you reaching the bios are - faults with: graphics card (lack of power, faulty, not inserted all the way or missing) Ram (faulty, missing, incorrect configuration, incompatible with eachother or the mobo) Processor (faulty, overheated, missing) Motherboard (faulty, insufficient or missing power, incompatible, corrupt bios) HDD (in rare cases a corrupt bootsector or bad jumper settting on a hard drive can cause certain brands of motherboards (e.g. some gigabyte boards) to not even display the bios). The worst case scenario is that one of your components is faulty and it causes a short or burnout of your motherboard. Power surge is also a possibility. Either of these is unlikely. It could also be something you have done while putting it together, a loose screw left inside etc. Was the case closed between the last time it worked and when it failed.[/quote]

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Hi

did you use the same ram from the old pc in the new pc? if so you may as the previous poster has said have a ramproblem try swaping the ram out and see how that goes.

Body [quote="royalflag"]Hi did you use the same ram from the old pc in the new pc? if so you may as the previous poster has said have a ramproblem try swaping the ram out and see how that goes.[/quote]

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Richard,
I have had exactly the same thing happen to me over the past two weeks - 2 systems suddenly stopped booting within a week of each other. System starts up, Fans run, disklight comes on but Screen does not activate and then Disk light goes out and system just sits there.

Did you resolve your problem?

Ps My grandchildren have been using both systems for Games so I wondered if this might have caused it

Regards

Charles

Body [quote="candc"]Richard, I have had exactly the same thing happen to me over the past two weeks - 2 systems suddenly stopped booting within a week of each other. System starts up, Fans run, disklight comes on but Screen does not activate and then Disk light goes out and system just sits there. Did you resolve your problem? Ps My grandchildren have been using both systems for Games so I wondered if this might have caused it Regards Charles[/quote]

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