Desktop won't boot up

J

johnmcarter

Member
After a little guidance here please. Turn on computer and it whirs away for a few seconds, doesn't seem to get through POST (no beep) and the monitor shows no signal so goes into Power Save mode. I thought it might be the graphics card causing the prob so put monitor lead to on-board graphics to no avail. Also tried different keyboard (PS2) also to no effect. Any ideas please?
 
When did it start? I'm guessing everything was completely normal until this started? Did you move your computer or bump it? It's possible something may have come loose on the inside; with the power off, check all power/data cable connections, as well as make sure the RAM is properly seated. When you moved the monitor cable to the on-board output, did you remove the video card (not just unplug any power feeds going to it, actually remove it from the MoBo)? Sometimes if the system sees one installed, it will default to that output regardless of where the cable is attached.
 
Also I've came across quite a few systems won't post if say a bad hard drive was connected to the system. So disconnect cables from hard drive and any dvd drives first.

And yes, you will need to remove the dedicated video card so that you can try using the onboard video.
 
Thanks for the replies. It's my wife's computer and when I asked her how it had been behaving recently I got a different take on the situation. It has apparently not been turning on and off as normal i.e. was turning itself off and then didn't want to start again for a while! I thought maybe CPU unseated but it seems OK. I've taken the graphics card out and re-tried and then disconnected the HDD's but didn't make any difference. I'm now wondering, in view of the above start/stop probs whether the MoBo or maybe even the PSU could be faulty. Any further thoughts and can I test these two components somehow. Interesting that the DVD Drive opens/closes OK but no POST and no graphics!
 
If its shutting off and not turning back on for awhile then thats usually a sign of the processor overheating. If you took the heatsink off, you need to wipe it clean and reapply it. It's possible the cpu is fried now if its overheated too much.
 
Yes, I had a similar problem a few years back where the mounting bracket was broken and CPU would not sit correctly. It's not the case on this one though but I have re-seated it - no difference.

Even if both HDD's had crashed I'm sure it would boot up to POST and show something on the monitor, but no. Looks like new Mobo to me unless someone has any other ideas?:confused::confused:
 
Check your headers. Had a computer doing something similar one time and come to find out one of the front USB ports was damaged (possibly small child crammed something that didn't belong into it) I unplugged it from the mobo and solved the problem. Another thing, make sure you reseat (unplug and replug you drives, memory and stuff). You may be amazed at what just shaking things up can do...Other thoughts,remove a stick of ram at a time and see if it will post, see if you can rob a stick of ram from something to test with if needed... Listen for a high pitch buzz or something that sounds like a dog whistle. Could be bad caps in power supply. Look at all the caps on motherboard and power supply (if you are to the point where you want to take it out) if they are not perfectly flat across the top they are bad, especially if they are leaking. You will be able to tell if they are leaking. Google it if you don't know what it looks like.. From here I would probably think more about the PSU than the mobo, but from here on out it can be a guessing game.. Good luck, and keep us posted..
 
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