[iamsoretarded23]

okay. before I get to my problem I have to tell you a story.

First off.

Im a junior in high school and I'm halfway through a yearlong IT class and at the end I'll go take the A+ exam.

okay now that that is out of the way

story time.......

I'll try and make a long story short.

My house caught on fire.
The computer was not touched.
I'm 99 percent sure that it didn't get touched by water either. (the firefighters brought it out right away.
I moved into my new house about a week later and hooked up the computer and used it.
It worked....but not that well....it was running slow...It took forever just to load up the Internet explorer. There was a slight smell coming from the computer.

So....

I took the computer apart.
I opened the case.
I cleared the case...starting with the cables...then the hard and optical drives...then the heat sink....then the motherboard....I cleaned out all the dust out of the case, off the motherboard, off all the drives and the power supply.
I did it right.
I put the board back in the case.
I took out the CPU cleaned off the old thermal gel on it and the heatsink (which was really nasty) with 91% isopropyl alcohol (It's just what i was trained to do) and earlier that day i bought thermal gel for like 3 bucks at Radio Shack. I put the CPU back in its ZIF socket. I applied the T-Gel to the heat sink and the CPU. Then put the heatsink back on very carfully. No T-Gel oozed out.

Then....

I put everything back in. I attached everythink in the right places. Started using the computer...everything worked right. It's been running amazing for 2 1/2 - 3 weeks now.



Now....to the problem.

The last 3 days I would be using the computer for a little while and randomly...the screen will show me just a blur....Kinda like tv snow but it doesn't move (I forgot to mention that I just use my integrated VGA which is nvidia G-Force...I'm not sure why there is no heatsink over the GPU...its never been an issue before). and from that point i cant do anything. so unplug the computer...

after the last time it happened i tried to start the computer.... and the power supply and fan start up... but the monitor, mouse, and keyboard does not.

-I made sure all my periphals work by testing them on my labtop and they do.
-I made sure everything was plugged in right and everything was.
-It didn't look like there was a problem with any connections on the mother board.




Now after that big long explanation...


What do you think is wrong?
What do you suggest I do?

You don't have to dumb down the explanation too bad...


All and any help is greatly appreciated.

Edited by iamsoretarded23, 18 December 2008 - 06:53 PM.

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You might want to reseat the memory and also reset the cmos. Normally there's a small circular batter on the motherboard, kindof like a giant watch battery. Pop it out, and put it back in.

Try that, and see if it posts

[lurky]

You might want to reseat the memory and also reset the cmos. Normally there's a small circular batter on the motherboard, kindof like a giant watch battery. Pop it out, and put it back in.

Try that, and see if it posts

[iamsoretarded23]

Ya know I thought about that.... but do you think that would have anything do with my periphrials not getting power...and the strange thing is i noticed that the led in the integrated rj-45 port is still working....but my periphrials dont get power....

[lurky]

Your peripherals aren't getting power because it's not proceeding through the power on self test. If we can get it to post, all your peripherals will power on as usual.

[iamsoretarded23]

well you see i cant even be sure if its going to post. nothing at all shows up on the screen, and I hear no beeps from the computer.... the monitor gets no signal from the computer. The computer just sits there and does nothing, but the fan keeps running.


What should I do? Would replacing the cmos battery get me through the post.

[lurky]

Go ahead and give it a try. Re seat the memory and the cmos battery. Also try powering it on with only individual sticks of memory.

[iamsoretarded23]

ok so I went and bought a new battery. I used the right kind. 2032 3v.

My computer worked for about 12 hrs after I bought the new battery. then my bro was on the internet while on the computer the graphics went crazy again...just a bunch of nothing resembling somthing like snow on a tv that was frozen still. after that I unpluged the computer and then turned it back on. it did the same thing it did earlier where it gave no power to anything. then i unplugged the computer disconected everything....popped out the cmos battery and popped it back in. and my comp was doing the same thing as before.

what do you suggest that I do?

[iamsoretarded23]

ok so I went and bought a new battery. I used the right kind. 2032 3v.

My computer worked for about 12 hrs after I bought the new battery. then my bro was on the internet while on the computer the graphics went crazy again...just a bunch of nothing resembling somthing like snow on a tv that was frozen still. after that I unpluged the computer and then turned it back on. it did the same thing it did earlier where it gave no power to anything. then i unplugged the computer disconected everything....popped out the cmos battery and popped it back in. and my comp was doing the same thing as before.

what do you suggest that I do?

[baula]

hi, what psu do u have? remove the RAM and power on the system. U must heard long beeps. You can also try this, remove each and every components from the case , then plug only RAM, Processor and on board VGA now power on the system. let see what happen?

[iamsoretarded23]

I have yet to hear any beeps.....

[Caffeine_Powered]

Well you say it didn't get hit with any fire or water, but are you completely ruling out the chance of heat damage?

If the fire was close enough to the computer it could've warped some of the boards or fried a component or two. The reason I'm thinking this is because your graphics problem could be due to such a problem. Your graphics problem doesn't sound so different from a faulty GPU, and considering you said it was working, the heat could of caused it to fault.

That's just my $.02.

Was your computer still slow before the graphics problem?

Edited by Caffeine_Powered, 24 December 2008 - 10:41 AM.

[lurky]

Do you have an alternative power supply that you can try?

your original cmos battery is probably fine btw, didn't really need to buy a new one.

[iamsoretarded23]

Actually, I might just be able to get my hands on a power supply pretty easily to test it out, I may possibly be able to get a used ATX board for next to nothing or free....I'm pretty sure mine is ATX....


About it running slow....It was running really slow until I cleaned it and then it worked for a little while before the graphics went out.

[Caffeine_Powered]

Actually, I might just be able to get my hands on a power supply pretty easily to test it out, I may possibly be able to get a used ATX board for next to nothing or free....I'm pretty sure mine is ATX....


About it running slow....It was running really slow until I cleaned it and then it worked for a little while before the graphics went out.

It's odd but still the first thing that comes to mind is that the heat damaged the graphics card. Dicey. Maybe try removing the card and using the onboard IGP, just throwing it out there fore the sake of narrowing down where the problem lies. This of course assuming you're using a dedicated Graphics Card.

*IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor = Onboard Graphics.

Edited by Caffeine_Powered, 28 December 2008 - 01:47 AM.

[iamsoretarded23]

I'm using IGP. When my computer started up after I replaced the cmos battery the voltages were a little under what they needed to be. My 12v was running at 11.somthing and my 4v was running was running at like 3.83......or somthing....