[mad_max]

Hi,

In last June (yeah, almost a year ago) my home desktop went kaput and I haven't been able to make it work since.

I bought a new PSU, bought new memory sticks, removed one video card and still nothing.

Here are the specs of my PC:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 6000+ 3.0 GHz
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
2x OCZ 2GB 800MHZ DDR2 (replaced with Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400)
2x XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX Edition
PSU Corsair 750TX 750-W

It runs WinXP.

Thanks for your help in advance!

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Disconnect everything from the Motherboard except

• keyboard
• mouse
• video output
• 20+4 powercable
• 4/8 pin 12v wire both coming from the powersupply,
• Cpu fan wire
• power and reset button to the case
• case speaker

Now you should have NOTHING connected to the motherboard except what was listed above.

The goal here is just to test the mobo:

If the computer still will not boot up the please remove the motherboard from the computer along with the power supply

place the motherboard on a piece of card board larger than the motherboard,

this will eliminate a short from the mobo to the case which could be a possibility

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

[rshaffer61]

Disconnect everything from the Motherboard except

• keyboard
• mouse
• video output
• 20+4 powercable
• 4/8 pin 12v wire both coming from the powersupply,
• Cpu fan wire
• power and reset button to the case
• case speaker

Now you should have NOTHING connected to the motherboard except what was listed above.

The goal here is just to test the mobo:

If the computer still will not boot up the please remove the motherboard from the computer along with the power supply

place the motherboard on a piece of card board larger than the motherboard,

this will eliminate a short from the mobo to the case which could be a possibility

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

[mad_max]

I'm sorry for the long delay posting the results of the instructions given by rshaffer61 more than a month ago, I got married on 5/21 and as you can imagine, my attention was somewhere else.

Now I'm back at full swing over here at my house and I just tried unplugging everything from the motherboard - without taking it out of the case - and I got to the boot screen where I wasn't able to move forward since the hard drive was disconnected.

What should I do next?

Thanks for your help!

[mad_max]

Hmmmm, something really weird just happened and I think my computer is officially dead now.

I started connecting all the components one by one, first I placed the second memory stick, turned the PC on and it was fine. Then I placed the second video card and it got ugly there, the computer didn't reach the boot screen. I removed the card and now it doesn't fully start. I hit the power button and the fans start slowly spinning and eventually stop.

I also checked the video card that I removed and one of the capacitors (?) had it's top sort of opened and some sort of cotton-like material coming from the inside.

Any ideas? Thanks!

[rshaffer61]

I also checked the video card that I removed and one of the capacitors (?) had it's top sort of opened and some sort of cotton-like material coming from the inside.

Faulty video card and needs to be replaced.
Take out other video card and then redo your steps. DO NOT put the bad card back in.

[mad_max]

I removed the motherboard and PSU from the case, placed them on a cardboard and had no success, all of this with no video card connected. Changed the PSU to an older one I had and I got the same result, the fans start spinning but they don't get to full speed and start slowing down until they stop.

Fried motherboard?

[rshaffer61]

I removed the motherboard and PSU from the case, placed them on a cardboard and had no success, all of this with no video card connected

If the system was booting you would need the video card either add on or built on the motherboard.
Since nothing starts I suspect a faulty motherboard now.
How old is the motherboard?

[mad_max]

I removed the motherboard and PSU from the case, placed them on a cardboard and had no success, all of this with no video card connected

If the system was booting you would need the video card either add on or built on the motherboard.
Since nothing starts I suspect a faulty motherboard now.
How old is the motherboard?

I had one video card plugged in and it worked fine.

I just tried again to turn it on and it turned on, fans running at full speed with no problems but had no video. I connected one video card, turned it on, fans correctly spinning but no video on the screen.

It's a card that was bought on December 2007.

[mad_max]

Tried again, and it started... Even displayed the boot on the screen, so the video card, PSU and the motherboard are working.

[rshaffer61]

OK so the good video card works now. Is it in the same slot as before or did you change slots it is plugged in to?

[mad_max]

It's weird, it randomly starts up. I don't know what's going on, I don't know if it's the video card, but it's annoying, I spent 3 to 4 hours trying to make it work correctly and I had no success.

Sometimes it starts normally, others it get's stuck in an infinite loop trying to get to the boot screen but restarting every 4-5 seconds while on a black screen, I know this because the DVD drive does its start up check in every loop.

I don't know if I should buy another video card or a new rig overall.

Any new ideas?

Thanks again!

[rshaffer61]

How old is the motherboard and PSU now?

[happyrock]

try booting into safe mode...play with it for a while...if all is good its probably the video card driver

also while your in safe mode...try this....
click start...right click on my computer...properties...advanced tab..
at the bottom click on error reporting...in the pop up window.. put a tick on disable error reporting..then OK...
while your in the area...
click on settings in the start up and recovery section...uncheck automatically restart..click OK...

this will keep you from ever getting in a booting loop thats a pain to get out of...you will instead get a blue screen that will have some error codes that will give us clues as to what the problem is
reboot...and let us know how it goes...

[rshaffer61]

Are you still having problems with your issue?
It has been 10 days since your last response and I was wondering if the issue has been resolved?
If so can you explain how it was resolved so others may be able to fix it if they have the same issue.
If not please let us know and we can continue with helping you to resolve the issue.

[mad_max]

Hi, I still was unable to solve the problem, and on top of that, my laptop also broke down.

Since both video cards have some capacitors blown out, I thought that it was an issue caused by this component.

The motherboard was bought on December 2007 and the PSU as bought on August 2010 but it has been unused due to the inactivity of the computer.