[leifo]

My wife's computer gave up the ghost the other day it seems, and I'm trying to isolate the issue. It won't POST or display anything. After a long power-cycle i got it to boot, it went to windows, then it froze (and the USB keyboard and mouse never worked through this time). Tried power cycling again and back to no-post no display.

Some relevant background:
The components have been in working order since 2005.

ASUS A8N-sli

AMD FX55 w/e the older core is, can't remember the name anymore

Corsair XMS3200 x 2 1gb sticks

some ATI GFX card I got in a trade, it's pretty old (relatively i guess, its PCIe)

What I've tried, and the question: reseated the cpu (cleaned and reapplied arctic5), reseated the GPU, tried one stick of RAM (tried with both as single stick), tried removing CMOS battery and jumping (yes it was unplugged and off), tried removing the GFX card and booting--got no beeps, tried removing the RAM--got no beeps (has onboard speaker ofc). SO the question, is it safe to assume at this point that either the MOBO, CPU, or PSU are junked? and how should i further approach the issue in regards to isolating the culprit?

Pre-thanks for any answers i get

Edited by leifo, 15 April 2009 - 06:26 PM.

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Check the psu first. turn the system on and see if the fan in the back of psu is turning. If it is then check the fans inside, the hd to see if it is spinning up, the cdrom if it is lighting up and the fan on the cpu and case fan if there is one. If none of this is working then the PSU is bad. If fans, hd, cdrom power on then most likely a mb issue

[rshaffer61]

Check the psu first. turn the system on and see if the fan in the back of psu is turning. If it is then check the fans inside, the hd to see if it is spinning up, the cdrom if it is lighting up and the fan on the cpu and case fan if there is one. If none of this is working then the PSU is bad. If fans, hd, cdrom power on then most likely a mb issue

[leifo]

Yeah I should have noted that everything spins up, just no POST. all fans are go on the PSU, gpu, cpu, and the few 120s. dvd drives even spin up etc. Can that really rule out the PSU then?

[rshaffer61]

Yes if PSu is running, and the other items are working. Then I would say the motherboard. The only other possibility is the cpu.

[rshaffer61]

To verify the mobo is bad you should isolate the mobo from the case. Follow these steps to make sure.


The goal here is just to test the mobo:

Remove the motherboard from the case and place the motherboard on a piece of card board larger than the motherboard,

this will eliminate a short from the mobo to the case

Install the cpu with, 1 stick ram in dimm 1, power supply, video card, case switch and case speaker
Connect ps2 mouse and keyboard along with the monitor and power on

If the computer now boots into bios you most likely had a case short so make sure when installing the motherboard in the case that you use standoffs and they line up with the mounting holes in the motherboard and none of the standoffs touch anything else on the underside of the board.


Thanks to Cbarnard for these instructions

Edited by rshaffer61, 17 April 2009 - 09:29 AM.