Is this a mobo issue?

M

metallimoose

New Member
Hello, everyone. Great site--I'd be very grateful if we could get some advice on our problem.

In short: our PC froze a couple times about a week ago--something it's never done. After one restart, the screen was very pixelly, nearly unreadable. We restarted again, and the screen was clear--we proceeded to download and install the latest video drivers for the card (GeForce 6800).

Everything was fine for several hours: and then the display went black. We restarted again, and the PC refused to boot--the lights would come on, and all but one of the fans worked, but the display never intialized, and we never got any POST beeps. We tried a new monitor--didn't work. We tried the old monitor on a different PC, and it worked just fine. Clearly, it's not a monitor issue.

Thinking we had a video card issue, we swapped out the 6800 with a Radeon 9100. The PC booted the first time, everything was fine, and we assumed we had our culprit--the GeForce 6800--and then the same exact problem occured upon another reboot: the lights and the fans (except for one) working, but no display and no POST.

We swapped out RAM--no help. We tried to swap out the 500-watt PSU for a smaller 250-watt, just to test, but the 250 wouldn't even get the lights and the fans functioning.

I'm thinking it's either the motherboard, or the PSU, but I'm not experienced enough to really know. The one fan that isn't spinning is the one in the rear of the PSU--I don't know if this means that the PSU is somehow faulty, because the fan in the front of the PSU works just fine. I'm hoping for some advice before we lug the machine into some exorbitant repair shop.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
I think it's probably your PSU. Did this PSU come with the case? And if it didn't could you put a link up that shows this PSU?
 
Well that seems like a good PSU, but you never know. Since the fans were not working that leads me to believe that the PSU may be failing to power these, and is possibly overloaded. If not I'm not really sure what the problem is.
 
i had a very similar problem recently with my last build, i had some trouble getting xp to install so i was working on that when the computer stopped displaying anything, no post beeps with the video card plugged in, etc. i thought it was a power supply problem too because it was a crappy psu that came with the case so i upgraded to a $100 psu then a $150 one, neither of which solved the problem. i proceeded to exchange the motherboard and when i popped it in all was well, except for the bad hard drive, but after replacing that, all really was well. My guess would be it's the motherboard but if you have any friends with a really nice psu you might want to test it with that just to be sure.
 
It seems to me that its a glitchy motherboard but, dont take my word for it
my degree is in networking lol.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

Is it normal for the PSU to power the lights/fans, but to fail to boot the system? That just seems strange to me.

And if we can find another motherboard to try, should we replace the processor as well, or would that be unnecessary? I'm not real familiar with the motherboard/processor aspect.

Thanks again! A huge help.
 
i'm not really sure about the psu only powering the fans, but i would think that if the psu was overloaded then it would turn off completely not just power a few things but i could be wrong. i would think that you should just have to replace the motherboard; if it started working when you replaced the video card for the first time and stuff then the processor is probly working right
 
Update--

We bit the bullet and took the PC to a repair shop, and the guy was nice enough to spend a looong time looking at it without charging much.

The problems he found are as follows:

1) The motherboard was fried.

2) The GeForce 6800 was fried.

3) One of the 512mb sticks was fried (but, inexplicably, not the other).

Why all of this would suddenly crash is beyond me. The guy said that it might be a power surge issue--but the PSU is fine. Doesn't seem logical to me, but I've had enough PC problems to know that they don't always fit that "logical" parameter.

We bought a new $70 motherboard at the place, we have the Radeon 9100 in place of the 6800, and we're running on the one good RAM stick. So our otherwise powerful machine is now just a shadow of its old self, but at least it's functioning. Pretty sure we'll be able to afford a new RAM stick soon, but replacing our 6800 is a real slap in the face. This crap just shouldn't fail the way it does, "power surges" or not.

Thanks to all who responded--I really do appreciate the effort. But I guess the only solution to this problem is to throw money at it.
 
metallimoose said:
Update--

We bit the bullet and took the PC to a repair shop, and the guy was nice enough to spend a looong time looking at it without charging much.

The problems he found are as follows:

1) The motherboard was fried.

2) The GeForce 6800 was fried.

3) One of the 512mb sticks was fried (but, inexplicably, not the other).

Why all of this would suddenly crash is beyond me. The guy said that it might be a power surge issue--but the PSU is fine.
Click to expand...
Remember these guys make their money by getting you to buy replacement parts. And with them something is always fried. I would say its your psu.
 
Ahh! The PSU it was. Well good to know you took care of things. Hopefully you'll be able to get some upgrades soon. Keep an eye on your temps! ;)
 
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