PC Won't Boot, Possibly Bad SATA Cables?

shaX 07 · 11-05-2009, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by imsati

You don't. Easier and cheaper to get a new MB or Drive.

Edit: *if* it comes down to that.

Damn, lets hope that it doesn't. I'll post back up once my power cables arrive and that either works or gets ruled out as the problem. Thanks for all the help so far.

CodeMinion · 11-06-2009, 05:59 PM

bad SATA cables could be the issue... a few months ago I have having the same issue. Sometimes the computer would hang on the Bio's load screen, and then sometimes it wouldnt pass that but wouldnt boot to windows at all. When i would get into windows on the rare occasion everything would be sluggish and when I would try to click my DVD-RW Drive i would get a error.. I changed out the SATA cable and everything went back to normal. Try trouble shooting the cables. It worked for me

PohTayToez · 11-06-2009, 07:34 PM

My god, threads like these are physically painful to read. So many people contributing, but everyone is so far off (even a mod!).

I can tell you absolutely and definitively that your problem has nothing to do with Sata cables or even your hard drive at all. You could turn the computer on, and even if your hard drive was completely fried, or not connected at all, you wouldn't ever see "no input" from your monitor.

Now, depending on what exactly is happening, it could be a few different things. Do you see the POST screen (looks something like this) before you see the "no input", or do you see "no input" just as soon as you turn on the computer?

If you're seeing it right away, then you're looking at some sort of hardware failure, or something not attached correctly, but definitely not the hard drive power or data cables. In fact, in this case the problem could be pretty much any component except the hard drive and optical drives, because these are the only components non-essential for showing POST. While it is remotely possible that these could be malfunctioning in a way that would interfere with the computer posting, a simple test would be to disconnect the optical and hard drives completely, and then turn it on. If it's still not POSTing, then it's a different component.

However, if you are seeing the POST screen before hand, then the problem will be significantly easier to narrow down. The first thing I would recommend is trying to boot into safe mode. IF you boot successfully, then you're looking at some sort of driver conflict with your graphics adapter... the best course of action would be to simply reinstall the drivers and see how that works.

If you still get "no input" when trying to boot to safe mode, then it's likely some sort of GPU hardware failure. If you're using a graphics card and you're computer has onboard video, simply switch to the onboard and try booting from there. If there is no onboard, or if you're currently using on board, try a different graphics card.

Hope this helps, and let me know which of these scenarios is the one that applies to you, and what happens when you take these steps.

**johnb35** · 11-06-2009, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PohTayToez

My god, threads like these are physically painful to read. So many people contributing, but everyone is so far off (even a mod!).

I never said it was the hard drive that was causing the issue. He stated he had problems keeping the sata data and power plugs tight on the hard drive. And all I stated was that I remembered at one time western digital had a drive out that require their own special connector.

I build and troubleshoot computers, I know it wasn't the hard drive that was causing the no input issue. You don't even have to have a hard drive connected to see the post screen. Could be video card, ram, motherboard, anything but the hdd.

So I'm not gonna take offense from your post but my post was more generated toward the loose sata cables, not the no input issue.

imsati · 11-08-2009, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnb35

So I'm not gonna take offense from your post but my post was more generated toward the loose sata cables, not the no input issue.

^ What he said.

One mention of 'no input' in the first line of the OP, then the rest of the Post was specifically talking about the HDD. Yeesh.

shaX 07 · 11-09-2009, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PohTayToez

My god, threads like these are physically painful to read. So many people contributing, but everyone is so far off (even a mod!).

I can tell you absolutely and definitively that your problem has nothing to do with Sata cables or even your hard drive at all. You could turn the computer on, and even if your hard drive was completely fried, or not connected at all, you wouldn't ever see "no input" from your monitor.

Now, depending on what exactly is happening, it could be a few different things. Do you see the POST screen (looks something like this) before you see the "no input", or do you see "no input" just as soon as you turn on the computer?

If you're seeing it right away, then you're looking at some sort of hardware failure, or something not attached correctly, but definitely not the hard drive power or data cables. In fact, in this case the problem could be pretty much any component except the hard drive and optical drives, because these are the only components non-essential for showing POST. While it is remotely possible that these could be malfunctioning in a way that would interfere with the computer posting, a simple test would be to disconnect the optical and hard drives completely, and then turn it on. If it's still not POSTing, then it's a different component.

However, if you are seeing the POST screen before hand, then the problem will be significantly easier to narrow down. The first thing I would recommend is trying to boot into safe mode. IF you boot successfully, then you're looking at some sort of driver conflict with your graphics adapter... the best course of action would be to simply reinstall the drivers and see how that works.

If you still get "no input" when trying to boot to safe mode, then it's likely some sort of GPU hardware failure. If you're using a graphics card and you're computer has onboard video, simply switch to the onboard and try booting from there. If there is no onboard, or if you're currently using on board, try a different graphics card.

Hope this helps, and let me know which of these scenarios is the one that applies to you, and what happens when you take these steps.

When I turn the PC on, I do NOT see a post screen, it immediately goes to NO INPUT. I haven't attempted to boot to safe mode yet but I can try it. What's weird is that even though the PC turns on and there's simply "NO INPUT" on the monitor, you can tell that Windows isn't booting just by listening to the hard drive. Once turned on, all you hear is the fans running, you don't hear or see blinking lights that would inform you that the PC is actually booting up.

Another strange thing that happened the last time I actually got the PC to boot was that I had it up and running and working fine, and I had spun slightly in my chair and kicked the tower accidentially (not even very hard, more of a nudge) and it went black on me and didn't end up booting after that (hence why I thought it was cable related).

shaX 07 · 11-10-2009, 11:10 PM

Just got my new power cables and that was the not the problem. I do feel better now that I have cables that will actually stay connected to my components but would like the PC to actually boot up...

Any further theories? Bad video card perhaps? Ive gotta try to find me an extra one to see if mine is just junk...

shaX 07 · 11-11-2009, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaX 07

Just got my new power cables and that was the not the problem. I do feel better now that I have cables that will actually stay connected to my components but would like the PC to actually boot up...

Any further theories? Bad video card perhaps? Ive gotta try to find me an extra one to see if mine is just junk...

Well it looks like my video card was junk because I put in a different one and it's now working fine and I haven't had any NO INPUT issues since.

I upgraded it to Windows 7 finally but I have discovered a new problem. The PC is now constantly freezing- It actually started before I upgraded to Win 7 so don't start blaming it on that. Once I got it working again I was going to test the video card's capabilities by playing a game in Steam and once I opened steam I clicked on servers and once it started listing servers the PC just froze and would not unfreeze at all. I had to do a hard shut down and turn it back on.

I tried it again with steam just thinking it was a fluke but it did the same exact thing.

I thought maybe it was steam related but I just logged onto Win 7 on it for the first time and it already froze twice- once while I was in control panel and another time when I wasn't doing anything except moving the cursor.

WTF would cause freezes like this? Bad memory?

**johnb35** · 11-11-2009, 10:10 PM

If the computer is freezing and then after a bit or so letting you do something, then I would download the hard drive makers disk diagnostic utility and run a scan on it.

PohTayToez · 11-07-2009, 06:41 AM

Fair enough, but then why didn't you say anything about that? I mean, it's clear that the thread was going in a direction that wouldn't ever solve the core problem, so why contribute to that rather than steer it in the right direction?

11-06-2009, 05:59 PM	#2 (permalink)
CodeMinion Silver Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 192	bad SATA cables could be the issue... a few months ago I have having the same issue. Sometimes the computer would hang on the Bio's load screen, and then sometimes it wouldnt pass that but wouldnt boot to windows at all. When i would get into windows on the rare occasion everything would be sluggish and when I would try to click my DVD-RW Drive i would get a error.. I changed out the SATA cable and everything went back to normal. Try trouble shooting the cables. It worked for me __________________ Case - Gigabyte - CPU - Ram - GPU - HardDrive 1 - HardDrive 2 - PSU - OS - NEEDS UPDATING... post new rig soon

11-11-2009, 10:10 PM	#9 (permalink)
johnb35 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Near Joliet Illinois Age: 39 Posts: 3,636	If the computer is freezing and then after a bit or so letting you do something, then I would download the hard drive makers disk diagnostic utility and run a scan on it. __________________ Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R CPU - E8400 Memory - 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x 1gb) Graphics - ATI HD3870 Hard Drives - 250GB Seagate DVD Drive - Lite-On DVD Burner - Lite-On Power Supply - Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W 22" Acer widescreen AL2216WBD

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11-06-2009, 07:34 PM	#3 (permalink)
PohTayToez Diamond Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Illinois Age: 20 Posts: 3,353	My god, threads like these are physically painful to read. So many people contributing, but everyone is so far off (even a mod!). I can tell you absolutely and definitively that your problem has nothing to do with Sata cables or even your hard drive at all. You could turn the computer on, and even if your hard drive was completely fried, or not connected at all, you wouldn't ever see "no input" from your monitor. Now, depending on what exactly is happening, it could be a few different things. Do you see the POST screen (looks something like this) before you see the "no input", or do you see "no input" just as soon as you turn on the computer? If you're seeing it right away, then you're looking at some sort of hardware failure, or something not attached correctly, but definitely not the hard drive power or data cables. In fact, in this case the problem could be pretty much any component except the hard drive and optical drives, because these are the only components non-essential for showing POST. While it is remotely possible that these could be malfunctioning in a way that would interfere with the computer posting, a simple test would be to disconnect the optical and hard drives completely, and then turn it on. If it's still not POSTing, then it's a different component. However, if you are seeing the POST screen before hand, then the problem will be significantly easier to narrow down. The first thing I would recommend is trying to boot into safe mode. IF you boot successfully, then you're looking at some sort of driver conflict with your graphics adapter... the best course of action would be to simply reinstall the drivers and see how that works. If you still get "no input" when trying to boot to safe mode, then it's likely some sort of GPU hardware failure. If you're using a graphics card and you're computer has onboard video, simply switch to the onboard and try booting from there. If there is no onboard, or if you're currently using on board, try a different graphics card. Hope this helps, and let me know which of these scenarios is the one that applies to you, and what happens when you take these steps.

11-10-2009, 11:10 PM	#7 (permalink)
shaX 07 New Member Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 14	Just got my new power cables and that was the not the problem. I do feel better now that I have cables that will actually stay connected to my components but would like the PC to actually boot up... Any further theories? Bad video card perhaps? Ive gotta try to find me an extra one to see if mine is just junk...

11-07-2009, 06:41 AM	#10 (permalink)
PohTayToez Diamond Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Illinois Age: 20 Posts: 3,353	Fair enough, but then why didn't you say anything about that? I mean, it's clear that the thread was going in a direction that wouldn't ever solve the core problem, so why contribute to that rather than steer it in the right direction?