Friends p4 no POST, BEEP or VIDEO..looking for help

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optV

New Member
My friend was at a LAN gaming get together and he plugged a usb external hard drive into his computer and his whole computer froze. Everything worked fine after a restart though. Later that night, his system would power up (fans spinning, lights on keyboard and motherboard) but no video signal and no beep codes. Here's what we've done to try to troubleshoot the problem:

-Replaced the AGP card with about 4 others.
-Reset CMOS via jumper and battery methods.
-Replaced CMOS battery.
-Replaced his no name brand power supply with a nice ANTEC 500W
-REPLACED HIS MOTHERBOARD WITH THE EXACT SAME MODEL BUT NEW
-Removed all devices (ram, processor, etc) and replaced them one by one trying to boot each time
-Tested the ram in a different computer.
-Booted the motherboard outside the case (testing for shorts)
-tried multiple cpu fans (sometimes bios will shut down a PC if the fan isn't spinning fast enough)
-Tried a different case (front wires)

The only thing I can think of is that it might be the processor, which felt very hot to the touch after about 15 seconds without a heatsink. I'm not sure if this is normal for a P4 or not, but we took the heatsink off the processor and after about 30 secs the computer would just shut down, with the processor too hot to touch.

I personally use AMD64 and so does everyone else I know so we have no way to test the processor.

Any ideas?


Heres the specs on his PC:
P4 2.66GHZ northwood
512 kingston value pc2700 DDR -TESTED in another PC
geforce 6600GT 128MB -TESTED in another PC
ANTEC 500W power supply (brand new)
can't remember which model motherboard (brand new)
 
fade2green514 said:
did u unplug the external hard drive? haha that might be it.
i duno find some way to test the P4
Click to expand...

Yes the external drive has been unplugged for days. Like I said earlier, I don't know anyone with a P4 so what we're gonna do is buy a $90.00 celeron from COMPUSA to test with then return it :D
 
Luckily your friend didn't have an AMD processor, or it would have burnt out when you tried it without the heatsink. It is normal for processors to be extremely hot, that is why they use a heatsink.
 
Just an update for anyone interested:

Well, my friend "rented" a new p4 3.0GHZ processor and same thing. We also tested some new ram, and a different power supply and nada. So far we've tested 3 power supplies, 2 motherboards, 2 processors, 4 agp cards, two cases, and 3 different sources of ram and nothing :(

So we took the computer to a repair place in town and the guy said it was most likely the motherboard. My friend just purchased this board as a replacement to the same model older one when the troubles began. He did however purchase this board refurbished through newegg, so he RMA'd it and ordered a new one that isn't refurbished. We'll see how it goes.
 
Here's a final update for anyone with the same problem:

It turns out he had two bad motherboards in a row :eek: . The initial motherboard was purchased refurbished through newegg, then mostlikely damaged by a bad power supply. Then my freind purchased the same model MB (also refurbished through newegg) and still nothing. So after purchasing yet another motherboard (same model) but new this time, it fixed it.....finally.
 
Wait, your saying the mobo fixed it? That was what fixed mine. But I cant believe it wasnt his CPU. you said you ran the P4 without a heatsink/fan? When I did that, mine fried within 10 seconds. I guess you got lucky.
 
b182tm said:
Wait, your saying the mobo fixed it? That was what fixed mine. But I cant believe it wasnt his CPU. you said you ran the P4 without a heatsink/fan? When I did that, mine fried within 10 seconds. I guess you got lucky.
Click to expand...

He's got a northwood chipset, they don't run nearly as hot as the prescotts.
 
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