Computer problems, need a bigger geek than I

[bsusigep18]

Alright, first off...i posted this on a few computer q/a boards a few days ago, still no response. I give it 3 hours before i have an answer, or at least an attempt from here. I have a giga-byte mobo. GA-7VRX ver. 2.0 mobo, and its been either ok, or total ****. This is my first attempt at putting together a computer, so bare with me. When i first put it together it was running fine...but it wasn't enough. Here's what i started at, for financial reasons i didn't move on to what i just got until now.

AMD XP2000+
Gigabyte - GA-7VRX2.0
256mb DDR PC2100
60g Maxtor 7200rpm
MSI 48x CDRW
Matrox 450 millenium (i've had that for a while)
along with all the other basics

Fastforward to last week. Bought a stick of 512mb DDR PC2700, PNY Verto Ti4200 64mb, another maxtor drive, and a 400w PS. Here's the problem:

This is all after attempting to install my new stick of ram. Everything else works fine. First i took out my old 256 PC2100 ram, before installing, at first boot up with the new ram, my monitor is not recognized. The power LED light on my monitor turns green, then fades to yellow, signifying that its not active. After trying another video card, and another monitor (which i know both work), to no avail, i can turn no where else but towards the motherboard. Any ideas as to what is going on? No changes were made to the motherboard other than adding the ram, which has been removed, set back to original hardware placement, which also has no results. Hopefully that made some sense. Thanks in advance for any help.

[irbodden]

You remembered to 'de-static' ...? This problem occured after you installed the new power supply?

[bsusigep18]

huh? i had the same issue before the PS...:confused:

[lopxtc]

Do you hear your BIOS beep? When you power on you should after a second or two get a beep from your case speaker which is just your BIOS telling you that it is good to go.

I had an issue where my system would look like it was powering on, but the monitor didnt come on. Disks spun and looked like they were booting as normal but no video. The only thing I noticed different was that I was getting a BIOS beep any more. Turned out the problem was a bad CPU. Put in an older CPU that I knew worked and bam powered up.

Aaron

[bsusigep18]

Hmm...interesting, thanks lopxtc. i'll check that out and get back to you. thanks.

[bsusigep18]

Well...i tried resetting the fan and cpu (thats what it suggests in the manual) and that didn't do crap, same exact situation. So, are we thinking its the cpu? am i just supposed to go and buy a new cpu? i don't have any other AMD cpus to test it on...any ideas?

[pbzmag]

Make sure that your mobo can accept PC2700 mem sticks. Put back the old mem stick and boot it up. If It works, then the new PC2700 stick is either bad or to fast for the mobo. Another problem can be an old piece of hardware. I too had a problem booting up with a pc that I put together myself. It turned out to be an old joystick that was causing the booting problem. Some old hardware won't work with new mobos. Also check your cpu for any burn marks or smell of burnt rubber. If you have any of those two, you have a paperweight.

pbzmag

[temps]

hmm... before buying a new cpu, you can bring it to a computer store that repairs computers, they will have cpu chips that they can test to see if you fried your cpu.

Other then that, all i can sugest is making sure that everything is connected securly, make sure you didn't knock anything out when you were fooling around in there.

Also answering the question of if your box beeps when you push the power button to start her up would help norrow the problem down a bit.

Good Luck!

[bsusigep18]

Thanks for the advice guys...i think we're narrowing it down to a cpu problem. hopefully i can get it fixed sometime in the near future. And to answer the bios question, no it doesn't beep when i boot up. Guess i'll have to make time to take it in to a computer shop to see what they can do for me. thanks.

[tr0n]

I am also thinking CPU. My friend's ACER (peice of crap 200-something MHz PC100 RAM) had the same problems. We took the processor out and looked at it after trying everything else in the entire world including taking it apart and putting it back together, and 2 of the pins were bent from when he took it out to look at it earlier that day. He must have forced it back in, but anyway we bent them back with a razor and put it back in and everything worked.

[mikey101]

Did you get a new heatsink with the processor? Because what happened to me when i got my AMDXP2000+ was I forgot to take the little sticker on the bottom of the heatsink off before I placed it on the processor and completely fried my processor when i started it up. This caused my monitor not to turn on such as your problem. If you turned your comp on with the sticker on the bottom of the heatsink touching it, it's most likely done because AMD's burn up in less then a second.

PS - Have you tried starting up in safe mode? it could just be a driver issue.

[alkafluence]

My suggestion is to move to the most basic setup and start from there.

The most basic setup:

Remove all cables and external drives.

Remove all "cards".

Start with the CPU, memory and graphics card that you know work.

Make sure that only the CPU, Memory and Motherboard are the things that are going to be running and see what happens.

If it works, proceed from there to replace only 1 component. If that works, then replace the next. Once you know all 3 of these items work, you can start reattaching your other hardware 1 by 1 until you find which is not working correctly.

Basically a "process of elimination."


Hope that helps...

[branman444]

have you for sure got it to a CPU prob. your computer has several diferant sounds from BIOS when ram is out it does one and when CPU is out another video another.you may switch from an AGP video to PCI for testing. look and see if you have any lights on the keyboard flashing when you start up numlock caplock ... if so let us know what. those are tel tel signs that will tell you what is wrong numlock is ram caplock is video (ill check on that to be sure if you let me know)

[Dayspring]

Well, try booting it up. If you get 3 beeps, it usually means there's an issue with the AGP card not seated correctly.

Another thing to think about is that the new graphics card is looking for a 1.5v AGP slot and you have a 3.3v slot. I know my motherboard won't even consider booting with a 3.3v AGP card in.

[digitard]

Man,
You guys <b>ALL</b> forgot the most basic thing ... he installed new components and it didn't work, so you <B>CLEAR THE BIOS</b> to reset its data.

A large chunk of the time its the cause ... (I do tech work for Insight.com).

Simple enough ... unplug the power to your MOTHERBOARD ... then there's a small silver CMOS battery on the board (about 1/2 an inch) ... remove the battery. After you've done that there should be a jumper near there labelled either CLRTC or CCMOS (normally its labelled that). Its going to be one of 3 things to clear it.

1) Its a single 2 pin jumper setup ... grab a jumper and put it on for about 30 seconds, then remove it and put the power/battery/etc back together and power it on with JUST the CPU and speaker attatched (and power).

2) Its a 3 pin Jumper setup. If this is the case there's already a jumper on pins 1/2 ... just follow the same steps and this time just move the jumper over ONE pin so its on pins 2/3 ... wait 30 seconds, then put the jumper back to 1/2 and power on again like previous.

3) Theres <b>NO</b> jumpers, and its just 2 solder points marked on the board. People mistake this for not having a clear option ... but in actuality its the most simple. Grab a flathead screwdriver and touch the 2 solder points together for approx 30 seconds, and then put the battery/power back and power on.

You should hopefully at this point get a consistant and repeating beep over and over on power on. This would be a "no RAM" beep. At that point put your ram back in (still no video) and power on ... it should be you 2 long and 1 short meaning no video .. put your video back in and you should get a display.

Hope that helps!

Sincerely,
Dave K

[branman444]

thought about that but on a lot of new boards dont have any jumpers and there is no way im going to tell the dude to put a screw driver on his MB thats insane hope you dont rune it for sure. I work on Compaqs mostly and they have a nice little button. If that the case then definitely do that. Just a causion.;) Hope you get it working!!!

[digitard]

Its not insane by any means ... the solder points are the clear, and thats how you clear them.

If your not sure which set of pins it is you can refer to the manual on clearing the BIOS ...

The solder points are where the pins used to be, but with all the jumperless boards being released many motherboard manufacturers chose to just use solder points instead.

On a side note, if you have NO battery and NO power going into the board you could touch it anywhere with a screwdriver and not cause damage... as an FYI

I'm diggin' up the manual to your board now ... I'll give ya an image and some references on how to clear yours exactly in a few mins.

Sincerely,
Dave K

[digitard]

Alright, here we go ... On your particular board its the 3 pin jumper labelled CLR_CMOS in the image below. There should already be a jumper on 2 of those 3 pins ... remove the power and battery like I said above, and then move this jumper over 1 pin for approx 30 seconds, then put it back to where it was and reconnect the battery, and then the power.

<img src="http://www.plur2k.com/beta/clrcmos.jpg">

Hope that helps...

Sincerely,
Dave K

[branman444]

All in All Agreed!!! but id be kinda scared of telling that to someone that dont know alot about computers. (what if he left it plugged in )you can never be to carefull. The diag. should help him a lot though.

[bsusigep18]

wow...thanks for the advice. first off, i don't have a jumper on either of those areas...not sure why, but im guessing i just need a three-pin jumper to take care of it, right? which i can locate somewhere for the purpose of clearing my bios. am i correct?

[lopxtc]

If I am not mistakes cant he just gank the battery and wait a little bit LOL :) its how I use to bypass BIOS password on my buddies systems years ago

Aaron

[bsusigep18]

ok, im not exactly sure if i cleared the bios correctly, i took another two-pin jumper and set it at the setting that seemed appropriate, and im getting no beeps at all, with no ram or video installed. what now?

[branman444]

take it to a repair man....

[lopxtc]

Put the ram in and test it ...

Check the following;

1) Are the hard disks spinning? Look for activity light.
2) BIOS Beeps ... any or none ...

If your disks are spinning up, but you are getting no video, and no BIOS beeps then more then likely your CPU is bad. That was the problem I had on my system.


Aaron

[Miscue]

OMG. I don't know where you guys learned how to repair computers. The guesses you guys are making are... guesses. Anything could be wrong... you can't say that it's probably the CPU, or the MB... you have to troubleshoot to figure out what it is... could be bad floppy drive or keyboard preventing boot up for all you know. Sure, some things are more/less likely than others of course.

You do not need to remove your battery. The OLD OLD school way of clearing CMOS was to put the battery in backwards for a bit. This was a LONG time ago, and clear CMOS pins remove need to do this.

Yes, you can use a screwdriver, car key, etc. to short out whatever leads you want to short out. Turn off power from wall before clearing CMOS.

Make sure you have the motherboard properly mounted... no shorts.

Just try to get the board to boot. Take out all your cards and unplug your drives - including floppy. All you want on the board is the CPU+fan, memory, vid card, power from PS... the bare minimum. If this don't work, you have your bad part isolated to one or more of these parts.

[pbzmag]

Miscue is right. Last year I put my own system together and had the same exact problem as bsusigep18 is having. I had an Asus A7V266-E w/Athlon XP 1800+/256MB/40GB HD. When I powered it up, absolutely no booting at all. Mobo was getting power and the HD was spinning. There were no beeps and no video. After an hour of fiddling, I removed all non essential hardware and booted up again. It booted up, but I was still wondering what was causing the problem. It was then I plugged my old joystick and rebooted and the system wouldn't boot up. The joystick was from the early 90's and wouldn't work with my Asus mobo.


bsusigep18 - Reset your BIOS so that it goes back to the default. A bad BIOS setting can also cause the problems you're describing. If that doesn't work, take out all of your new cards and replace them with the old cards. Probably no need to remove the 400 watt PS. Clear the BIOS again and reboot. Your computer should bootup fine. If not, remove all non essential hardware like sound card, SCSI, NIC's, etc. Just have the original video card, monitor, mouse/keyboard, and the original stick of memory. Clear the BIOS and reboot. If it still not booting, one of the items in the pc is bad. Take out the cpu and check it for any burn marks or for a plastic smell. If you have one of those, the cpu is dead. Do the same with the memory and mobo. If it boot fine, turn off the pc and replace one card and reboot. Do this until it doesn't boot up. You found the culprit. Go back to the store you bought and get it replaced. If you still have problems, bring it to a computer store PCClub, CompUSA, or one of the smaller computer stores. Make sure that you bring it to a reputable store if taking it to one of the unknown shops. If anyone notice that I missed something, let me know. As a computer tech, I know what I'm doing but just don't write it down good.

pbzmag

[alkafluence]

Originally posted by Miscue
OMG.

Just try to get the board to boot. Take out all your cards and unplug your drives - including floppy. All you want on the board is the CPU+fan, memory, vid card, power from PS... the bare minimum. If this don't work, you have your bad part isolated to one or more of these parts.

OMG is right... I said this like 8 posts up ;)


Just razzin' ya Miscue.

[Miscue]

Whoops. I'm sorry. You're gonna have to excuse me for being dumb... I've been doped up on painkillers...

[Miscue]

Originally posted by pbzmag
If you still have problems, bring it to a computer store PCClub, CompUSA, or one of the smaller computer stores.


Hehe... I used to be PC Club's youngest employee... funny you mentioned them. Most people have never heard of them.

I had the highest monthly profit margin out of every employee a few times. I also was their most productive technician a few times... I once single handedly did more revenue in tech work than any individual store with a full staff.

[CasingBill]

Could he have a bad power supply? Once I had one go bad. It would make just enough noise and lights that i thought it was something else. Turns out it was not putting out the righ voltage it needed. Just a free thought.

[Miscue]

Sure... bad powersupply could do it. Yup. Power supply issues can be huge pains. They can work just enough to make everything seem ok... but end up frying stuff after running for a little while... particularly new test parts.

This is why I only use high end power supplies... and am quick to replace a powersupply when there's multiple hardware failures.

[bsusigep18]

Alright, finally got some time to sit around and fiddle with this hunk of metal. Im troubleshooting now to see whats going on and if i can narrow it down anymore. First things...im not getting any beeps at all with no memory in. Can that narrow it to a motherboard problem? or am i jumping ahead of myself?