[Ketamine Dreams]

Hey gang, new to the forum. Trying to diagnose what's going on with my desktop. Starting about 5 days ago, I was doing some light work and BAM, down she goes. Reboot, back to what I was doing for maybe 5 minutes, and down again. This progressively became shorter and shorter. I then decided to go directly to the BIOS with case wide open (open air flow). Same thing. So, today I finally get around to installing a fresh MB battery (been years). Nada. Now, it won't even give me anything on the screen. The HDD were clinking on/off (I have 5 of them - 2 on OS with RAID 0 SATA, 1 on Promise SATA, 2 on IDE). I disconnected all of them - still no BIOS screen. All fans are spinning without interruption at this time. I'd guess at the most, this Power Supply is 36 months old (550w Antec).

So, at this point I'm thinking mobo. My computer definitely has some age on it, but it does most of what I ask of it (most of my gaming has transitioned to console). I'd not planned on doing a complete system revamp for another 18-24 months. On the other hand, I really don't have the time or patience to gut my board out and redo things (i.e. I'd rather just get a partial b-bones and drop the HDDs and video in). What do you guys think? Thanks!





SPECS
ASUS P4C-800E Deluxe 478
P4 3.0E Prescott
OCZ Plat DDR400 (PC 3200) 2x1GB
Antec Truepower II 550W
Radeon X1950 Pro 512mb
Raptor 37gb (2) RAID 0 - Vista Ultimate

Edited by Ketamine Dreams, 12 April 2009 - 12:19 PM.

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Hello Ketamine Dreams

Welcome to G2G! My name is Oreo Collas and I'll be helping today. Please be sure that you print or copy all of the instructions to a document on your desktop as many of the directions may require you to log into Safe Mode or unhook your internet connection.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to read through all the directions and make sure that you understand them completly before doing any thing. If there is something that you do not unsderstand then let me know and I will elaborate. Skipping steps, working out of order, or working ahead of the directions may cause undesireable results.

Well, first thing I might sugest is to clear all power from the computer. Since this happened when you replaced the mobo battery then try unplugging the power (If it's a laptop then also remove the battery) and hold the power button down. Lights may flash but the computer should not turn on. Let it sit for 5 min then plug it all back in and try to boot. Let me know how this works for you.

[EDIT: Spell Check]

Edited by Oreo Collas, 12 April 2009 - 06:55 PM.

[Oreo Collas]

Hello Ketamine Dreams

Welcome to G2G! My name is Oreo Collas and I'll be helping today. Please be sure that you print or copy all of the instructions to a document on your desktop as many of the directions may require you to log into Safe Mode or unhook your internet connection.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to read through all the directions and make sure that you understand them completly before doing any thing. If there is something that you do not unsderstand then let me know and I will elaborate. Skipping steps, working out of order, or working ahead of the directions may cause undesireable results.

Well, first thing I might sugest is to clear all power from the computer. Since this happened when you replaced the mobo battery then try unplugging the power (If it's a laptop then also remove the battery) and hold the power button down. Lights may flash but the computer should not turn on. Let it sit for 5 min then plug it all back in and try to boot. Let me know how this works for you.

[EDIT: Spell Check]

Edited by Oreo Collas, 12 April 2009 - 06:55 PM.

[Oreo Collas]

If this does not work then let me know if your system had any diagnostic lights on it. It's usually four numbered lights on the back of the computer case that will eaither be off, yellow, or green. The pattern will indicate what is wrong. Post the pattern of lights if you do have them.

[Ketamine Dreams]

Thank you for the reply. Just to make sure there was no confusion - the problem did not start after I changed the battery. I chose the battery change after it starting acting up, just because I felt it was a possible reason. I feel that the worsened/lack of any screen image since the battery change is merely coincidental, and indicative of the progressive decline of the problem.

Being said, I did remove all power, which to my surprise, did allow me to see the ASUS boot screen for perhaps 3 seconds, followed by the same crash. There are no diagnostic lights. I failed to mention earlier that on boot, it no longer makes the standard boot chime (or any other diagnostic sounds [RAM failure, etc.] for that matter).

[Oreo Collas]

Sorry for not making myself clear. I knew that, but it seemed that the battery might have made it worse.
Please try this next step.

Try unplugging the power (If it's a laptop then also remove the battery) and hold the power button down. Lights may flash but the computer should not turn on. Let it sit for 5 min then take the mobo battery out. Plug it all back in and try to boot. Let me know how this works for you.

[EDIT: Spell Check]

Edited by Oreo Collas, 12 April 2009 - 06:55 PM.

[Ketamine Dreams]

No dice.

[Oreo Collas]

Well then, let's start with unhooking all of the hardware. Disconnect all of your drives, take out all of your ram, take out all of your expansion cards and slowly add stuff till something does not work. First I would add the RAM then the hard drive containing your operating system. Do you get the error with just those hooked up?

[Ketamine Dreams]

Alright, perhaps some progress. So, with everything disconnected, I get 3 beeps (1 long, 2 short). I then insert 1 RAM module for now. This replaces the 3 beeps with a standard POST beep. Okay, so let's see the actual BIOS, I think. Add Vcard - power on for less than 1 sec (i.e. fans rev and stop). Back to RAM only - okay. Add both Raptors (OS RAID drives) - okay. Add Vcard again - now it runs without shutting down, but does not show any image whatsoever, and no beeps/post. Then, to repeat, I went RAM and Vcard only and it went the no beep rout (vs. previous 1 sec power). I'm thinking that when everything else it hooked up, the huge power demands (btw, this is one of those dual supply VPUs), are causing the previously described abrupt shutdown in an otherwise dead Vcard.

So, think I should drop this card in another computer (none immediately available) and see if it works?

[Oreo Collas]

Yes. And also put a different v card in this computer.