[bvjens31]

GeeksToGo:

Hey, my name is Chris and I just purchased a new machine from newegg a couple of weeks ago. I hooked it all up and was working fine until today when some very strange things happened, things I had never seen before. Here are my computer specs:

Intel Core2Duo E6300 Conroe
2x512 mb corsair xms2 ram
Asus P5B P965 board
Xion PowerReal 600w psu
evga nvidia 7900gs card

Something out of that list died I think, I just need to know which so I can do an RMA with newegg before my classes start this Spring. Here's what happened:

I was playing civilization 4 for a couple of hours when my rig did a restart. I was pretty used to this with my last rig as it did it quite often if something got too hot while playing a game. Upon the reboot, I got a bios message saying that my CMOS settings were wrong and the overclocking failed (even though my AI oc'ing has been set to automatic for the past 2 weeks and had been working fine) (also, my cpu ran about 49c max with stock heatsink, I didn't think that was too much). Anyways I checked the bios just to make sure and the oc'ing was still set to auto. I did a save settings & exited to reboot. Upon reboot this time, however, instead of instantly rebooting, my machine temporarily shut down for probably 5 seconds, then started back up. I thought nothing of it. I came back a couple minutes later and the only thing on screen was my desktop background. No icons, no nothing. I tried bringing up task manager but nothing came up. had to shut down via power button on tower. This time when it booted up, I saw the flashing underscore on screen hoping that the windows xp logo would show up, but it never did. Just a black screen after the flashing underscore. Uh oh. So I did another hard shut down. This time upon boot up, my monitor would not even recognize a signal from the PC. I did one more hard boot and the next boot was the same, no signal from pc. So I pulled cmos battery, reset the cmos jumper, replaced it all, and tried booting up again, still no dice. So something obviously has happened, I just am not sure what. I'm leaning towards cpu or vid card. Any advice would be amazing! I hope my description of the problem wasn't too much. Thanks and I look forward to a reply.

A few last things....all of the fans spin up when i turn on the machine, all case fans, psu fan, cpu fan, and gpu fan. Also, the green LED light on mobo is on. But nothing appears on screen. Hope that also helps. Thanks.

In trouble,
Chris

Edited by bvjens31, 04 January 2007 - 03:45 PM.

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Just had almost the same problem with my own computer yesterday. It turned out the 512 memory stick in the first slot had failed. Although the computer would boot because of the 512 stick of memory in the third slot. because the first stick of memory was bad windows would not load. Yes, the fans started up and it seemed everything was running but i could not hear the ticking sounds that are normal from the hard drive.

Of course i thought it was the video card so i replaced it first with exactly the same results. I should have used my own replacement list which first lists memory replacement. As soon as i switched the memory stick with another the computer booted up like nothing has happened. But then i had to take the replacement video card back out and reinstall the original video card.

I am using this same computer to write this message.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Just had almost the same problem with my own computer yesterday. It turned out the 512 memory stick in the first slot had failed. Although the computer would boot because of the 512 stick of memory in the third slot. because the first stick of memory was bad windows would not load. Yes, the fans started up and it seemed everything was running but i could not hear the ticking sounds that are normal from the hard drive.

Of course i thought it was the video card so i replaced it first with exactly the same results. I should have used my own replacement list which first lists memory replacement. As soon as i switched the memory stick with another the computer booted up like nothing has happened. But then i had to take the replacement video card back out and reinstall the original video card.

I am using this same computer to write this message.

SRX660

[bvjens31]

So if one stick of memory is bad, then i wont even POST or get into bios? my monitor wont even see a PC signal?

[happyrock]

did you try booting into safe mode...do you hear any beep codes...if no beep codes then and you dont see anything on the screen then I would suspect the power supply...do you have another you could put in to test with...

[bvjens31]

No safe mode because my machine wont even post...there is nothing on screen at all...nope its the only psu i got everything powers up though, cd spins up, fans spin up...although in regard to the previous reply, i am not hearing any hard drive clicking sounds

Edited by bvjens31, 04 January 2007 - 04:37 PM.

[bvjens31]

Ok so I just removed both sticks of ram and started it up, but I get no post error. So I'm guessing it's mobo or cpu. :/ But it could still be psu too I would think..wish I had a psu tester

[happyrock]

you have to leave in 1 stick of ram..try it in different slots too...

Edited by happyrck, 04 January 2007 - 05:04 PM.

[bvjens31]

Um, while attempting to take my cpu out to see if it burned, i noticed that one of the posts on my heatsink could be pulled out quite easily. I didn't think it was clipped in all the way so I pushed it back in, and it clicked (like it should). But I could still pull it right back out. I re-clipped it in a few times and could still pull it out and noticed that the other 3 were firmly in the mobo and could not be pulled out. Finally, I pushed it in harder than I normally would have liked to and this time it clicked twice, and was firmly in the mobo like the other 4. So now I fear that I burned the cpu because I didn't know that [bleep] fourth post wasn't in the mobo all the way. Can anyone confirm my fears?

[SRX660]

The good thing about Intel CPU's is that they have overtemp switch built in that shut's the computer down instantly before temps get too high and fry things. I am not saying that it can't happen but i have used 3 different intel CPU's with new motherboards after the old MB's fried or the caps shorted out.

On one motherboard i left the CPU fan unplugged and spent a hour trying to figure out why it would not fire up after a few minutes the first time. I had the side cover off while i tried starting the computer and then seen that the fan was not turning. I played He-double-L figuring out how to get the error message about overtemp at the startup to stop. A Bios reset fixed that.

SRX660

Edited by SRX660, 07 January 2007 - 07:13 PM.