Power but nothing else.....

u.k.man

New Member
I have built a new PC from scratch and I had ran it a few times on separate dates and everything was fine.Today I had put a new heatsink/fan in because I had wanted to try a quieter fan and I wanted to try the Artic Silver paste that so many people had recommended in earlier postings in this site. Anyway.... when I installed heatsink/fan etc I powered up and all I got on PC screen was ' no signal' 'check signal cable'.So I checked and everything seemed fine there.Looked inside PC and the heatsink/fan was working and all other fans were ok but that was it! I then went to turn off PC from front of case and it wouldn't turn off only from the plug socket on wall.Why can't I see bios and no operating system on screen etc? What can I do? Or what is the problem? Please ,please help???
 
It's simple. When you opened the case up to reseat the heat sink/ fan with AS5 you unknowingly moved the wire harness from the case itself causing the small plugs for power, reset, power and hard drive led lights to lift off the pins on the small block. It wouldn't turn off with the switch because it isn't connected.
 
did you hold the button in for 4-5 seconds? check the video card seating, and everythng else?
 
ya you generally have to hold the button for about 5 seconds, i heard that sometime with new features and problems like this you have to take th battery out of the mobo, is this correct, either way it cant hurt anything, its just a circular battery like a wtch battery but about 4 times buigger
 
Today I had put a new heatsink/fan in because I had wanted to try a quieter fan and I wanted to try the Artic Silver paste that so many people had recommended in earlier postings in this site. Anyway.... when I installed heatsink/fan etc I powered up and all I got on PC screen was ' no signal' 'check signal cable'.So I checked and everything seemed fine there.Looked inside PC and the heatsink/fan was working and all other fans were ok but that was it! I then went to turn off PC from front of case and it wouldn't turn off only from the plug socket on wall.

if thats the case PC eye how would he get it to power up in the first place?
just curious

"Today" refers to having seen the system run prior to installing a new hsf. If you open a working case and move around inside you can easily bump the hardness just enough to see the small plugs lift off of the block. Believe me it doesn't take much for that. That happened upon finally getting this one together and first assuming there was a board problem until taking a look. :eek: ! That can make your day! :P
 
lol wow. pc eye, im impressed. i would've never thought of that, then again i would never be so careless as to unplug something while im working inside a computer thats turned on... but still.
he turned the computer on, opened it up to look inside while it was on, and must have unplugged the front switch connector.
would the computer turn back on after you unplugged it from the wall?
 
lol wow. pc eye, im impressed. i would've never thought of that, then again i would never be so careless as to unplug something while im working inside a computer thats turned on... but still.
he turned the computer on, opened it up to look inside while it was on, and must have unplugged the front switch connector.
would the computer turn back on after you unplugged it from the wall?

First of all if you read the thread you would noted the original heat sink/fan combo was removed for a newer quieter one. Most people not only power down a system but also unplug the ac cord. :rolleyes: With any tension on the harness just moving a case around or a slight bump can see those wires lift up and off at times.
 
should't you leave the ac plug in when working on your pc for a ground or something? heard that a long time ago, and always did it, but i never knew how true it was.
 
Which CPU do you have? Sometimes you have to be careful with certain models. If you chip the die when you installed the HSF you're screwed. That was largely a problem with Athlon XPs (and yes, you guessed it, another reason why I hated them).

If you installed the HSF when the mobo was installed, which it sounds like, I would reseat the RAM. Take it right out and then put it back in. The board would have flexed when you installed the HSF and might have dislodged the RAM.

Reseat all your other cards while you're at it.
 
If you damage the cpu there is generally either an audio alert or a visual message seen onscreen. The fact that nothing comes up suggests no power is going through the board other then seeing the fans running. The board isn't switched on if the wires are off of the block. The inability to turn off the fans with the front button points at the wires being off. Apparently that supply doesn't have a breaker switch on that either to have to unplug the ac cord.
 
I must admit that pc-eye's suggestion makes sense.. but wouldnt it be simpler to just ask? :P

Doas you's pc start running ( well, the fan's etc) if you hit the power button? ( the one in the front of the case that is)
if it does... its connected.
then try reseating the grafic's card in the AGP slot, and preferably if you have an old PCI card lieing around, try to put that one in.
it could be that your grafic's card just isnt getting a signal, or it died ( however i doubt the last one :) )

ofcourse i cant guarrantee that any of that works.. but i think its worth checking out :o
 
If the video card didn't work there would generally be an audio alert with a set of beeps depending on the bios on that board. Since the system had been running normally until installing the new hsf moving around inside the case probably bumped the mani harness into the other causing the plugs for the power switch and even a few others to lift off. It doesn't take much for those due to being small and light wires. Going inside and examining all connections would be the only way to rule that out.
 
If the video card didn't work there would generally be an audio alert with a set of beeps depending on the bios on that board. Since the system had been running normally until installing the new hsf moving around inside the case probably bumped the mani harness into the other causing the plugs for the power switch and even a few others to lift off. It doesn't take much for those due to being small and light wires. Going inside and examining all connections would be the only way to rule that out.


not all motherboards do that though. nor do much moethrboards give any sighnt if the CPU is dead, for example. my old MSI K7T Turbo LE,.. when my thunderbird 1333 died,.. it had the same symtom's as posted in the first post, the fans, HDD started running, but the monitor didnt get any input.
the 4 led's on the motherboard ( Binairy error codes ) were red tough.. but it didnt give any audio signal.
 
wow,thanks for all the info! in fact I have got so much in fact I don't know where to start! Anyway,firstly I am going to clear the CMOS which I read in another post(I am hoping that would help and I will keep you posted)
 
One thing I noticed my wife had the system unplugged for at least a month and I put in the heatsink/fan and a new dvd drive as the other so called new one wasn't working.Then I fired it up and thats when I got nothing except the fans going.
 
So why not try unplugging the DVD drive and seeing if it powers back up? You never know...

Definitely reseat your RAM and cards though. Call it a hunch.
 
you are getting power but no POST from what it sounds like. I would make sure your RAM is installed properly (paired for dual channel, or what not) and seated properly, make sure your video card is nice and seated, and has power if it requires power from the powersupply, then I would unhook all other hardware.

For a system to POST you need mobo, processor, ram, and video and nothing else (well power of course).


See if you can get it to POST, you can also take it outside the case and post it by killing the power switch with a screw driver. It could be something is grounding out in the case. The possibilites are near endless, so you must start a trial and error troubleshooting step by step to eliminate what its not.
 
I had cleared the CMOS but everything was as same as before i.e fans all working including heatsink fan but nothing else except on screen 'no signal cable' 'check signal cable'.The one thing I had noticed was when I fired up the keyboard lights had flashed briefly,the DVD and CD lights at front of case had lit up and then went off and it sounded like the hard drive was working.
I couldn't get the PC to turn off with the power off button but only from the wall.However,I read from earlier post about pushing in the button for about 4-5 seconds and when I did that(hey presto) it went off!
People had mentioned earlier about re-seating and un-plugging ram,graphics card,DVD,CD drive etc. Is it still worth doing that cos before all this happened everything was working fine, thanks
 
I had cleared the CMOS but everything was as same as before i.e fans all working including heatsink fan but nothing else except on screen 'no signal cable' 'check signal cable'.The one thing I had noticed was when I fired up the keyboard lights had flashed briefly,the DVD and CD lights at front of case had lit up and then went off and it sounded like the hard drive was working.
I couldn't get the PC to turn off with the power off button but only from the wall.However,I read from earlier post about pushing in the button for about 4-5 seconds and when I did that(hey presto) it went off!
People had mentioned earlier about re-seating and un-plugging ram,graphics card,DVD,CD drive etc. Is it still worth doing that cos before all this happened everything was working fine, thanks

Yes because of thermal dynamics things can become loose once they heat up (metal expands when heated) and knock itself loose.

Since you are not POSTing we need to start from the ground up. Disconnecte everything but ram, video, processor, motherboard, power.

Do you POST then?
 
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