I am on my laptop right now, cause my desktop is doing something real strange. It recently started restarting itself out of nowhere, and now it will not completely turn on. It turns on, but yet it seems as if it doesnt send signal to the monitor?? The monitor just stays in a sleep mode kinda state with the orange light on. I have checked the connections, and even opened it up and checked out everything. Here's the computers specs, it's nothing great. Athlon xp 2000+ shuttle ak31 mobo, 1gb pc2100ddr, geforce 5700 ultra, soundblaster audigy platinum ex and a view sonic 19 inch monitor. It has a turbo link 400watt p/s, and a 40 gb maxtor hard drive. I have always kept up with my updates, and am always installing the latest drivers for my hardware. I am running windows home edition with sp2 and all the latest updates. Any suggestions!?!? HELP!! lol.
Even without an audio alert something on your video card could have let go. Usually you would hear a long and two short beeps as a hardware failure code. Another thing that will stall a system is a board fault now being realized. If the fans and lights all seem normail it's less likely a power supply with a bad cap. Yet that is still a last hardware to consider as well.
They can often appear as a metal cylinder with two leads for the metalic type or a semi cicular disk for the ceramic type. Basically they build up and hold a small charge of current to be released later in the opposite direction. They very quickly act like a small battery to hold a charge. All this happens in a few micro seconds of time. But they can still be holding a chage depending on type after the power is completely off. Techs will discharge them before any direct handling to avoid getting "zapped"!
No bulging or leaking caps(cap short for capacitor) is a good sign that the board itself isn't toast. A power supply will generally a few large sized caps in them that you have to discharge thoroughly before handling. A bad or weak cap has lost the ability to hold a sufficient charge needed to suplement current levels when demand for power is placed on the supply. On an older Socket A board there however you could have a failng cpu without seeing the message come onscreen.
The persistent reestarts suggest that the stock heat sink's thermal pad may have let go with the cpu seeing high temps. That would account for the sudden restarts of the system. Generally if the lithium battery found on the board itself quits nothing will turn on. Do you hear any fans running when you turn the power on? How about drive lights giving a quick flash as if the system was trying to load while nothing was seen? Besides a board fault being one possible cause a failed cpu can't be ruled out there.
I can hear the fans come on, and NO my green light is not flashing like I believe it should be when it's loading windows....hmmm.....Bad hard drive causing this possibly????
If you have a green and a red the red light is generally what indicates hard drive activity. You would see that start flickering as the post tests completed and Windows started to load. The green light is mainly to show whether or not the system is on and has power. Unless you have an unstable supply with voltages bouncing up and down that should remain a constant. If the cpu gave out you won't see anything due to the system being halted there.
A friend recently got caught off guard when installing an Atholon XP2600 into an old case after assuming a board not cpu went on another case. There "nothing" came up onscreen and no audio alert beeping or visual message appeared onscreen pointing to that. The cpu had only been in use for less then 2yrs. when it suddenly quit one day without warning. When he reinstalled the XP2000 that had been on the board nothing worked showing the bad cpu managed to ruin another board. You would still see the initial post screen even with a bad drive. You can try unplugging it and then turning on the system to check that out.
The monitor just stays in a sleep mode kinda state with the orange light on. I have checked the connections, and even opened it up and checked out everything. Here's the computers specs, it's nothing great. Athlon xp 2000+ shuttle ak31 mobo, 1gb pc2100ddr, geforce 5700 ultra, soundblaster audigy platinum ex and a view sonic 19 inch monitor. It has a turbo link 400watt p/s, and a 40 gb maxtor hard drive. I have always kept up with my updates, and am always installing the latest drivers for my hardware. I am running windows home edition with sp2 and all the latest updates. Any suggestions!?!? HELP!! lol.