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Broken Computer

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Hey
I'm sitting looking at a broken computer. It seems to power up ok (fans spin on both the PSU and the processor), but this is where it stops, there are no beeps and nothing on the screen. I decided to remove the RAM to see if I'd get the 'missing/broken RAM' beeps when I turned it on and I didn't. This makes me think it's a motherboard problem :(, but wanted to check to see if anyone had any bright ideas before I go out and buy a new motherboard.

So... Any thoughts? Agree/Disagree with my motherboard diagnosis? Any more checks I can do?

All help is greatly appreciated!

George
Everyone needs a volume control -
When you shout every day and make everthing a catastrophe,
no one will hear you when you need to say something really important.

Comments

  • Little_John
    Little_John Posts: 4,033 Forumite
    Take it back to the bare minimum, PSU, board and cpu see what happens hopfully you will get some beeps either memory or graphics card, If you do then start adding componenets 1 at a time till it doesnt work. graphics card, memory, hard drive, optical drive, sound card, modem, network cards and see where it falls over.
  • swift_gti
    swift_gti Posts: 86 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    You can also try jumping the cmos before stripping everything down.
    Remove the power cable and look on the motherboard for a circular watch style battery.. but one about the size of a 10p. Near that you will probably find a jumper for clearing the cmos (you may need to check the motherboard manual to find it) once you've located simply move the jumper over to the clear position for about 15 secs then move back to normal position.
  • valleyk
    valleyk Posts: 21 Forumite
    Sorry to say mate, but I agree with your mobo diag! Sounds like it's toast.
  • inamabilis
    inamabilis Posts: 198 Forumite
    Take it back to the bare minimum, PSU, board and cpu see what happens hopfully you will get some beeps either memory or graphics card, If you do then start adding componenets 1 at a time till it doesnt work. graphics card, memory, hard drive, optical drive, sound card, modem, network cards and see where it falls over.

    It was pretty bare min when i tried - only RAM, PSU, MB and Graphics, and I already pulled the RAM. Will do Graphics now and get back to you
    Everyone needs a volume control -
    When you shout every day and make everthing a catastrophe,
    no one will hear you when you need to say something really important.
  • inamabilis
    inamabilis Posts: 198 Forumite
    swift_gti wrote: »
    You can also try jumping the cmos before stripping everything down.

    Will do, but i'm confused as to why this would help?
    Everyone needs a volume control -
    When you shout every day and make everthing a catastrophe,
    no one will hear you when you need to say something really important.
  • inamabilis
    inamabilis Posts: 198 Forumite
    swift_gti wrote: »
    You can also try jumping the cmos before stripping everything down.

    GENIUS! :T
    There was one slight problem - wasnt a jumper there to start with - wonder if thats what was causing the problems! :rotfl:
    BUT! Thats exactly the reason that i hold on to old dead computers, so i quickly found one, reset the cmos and it now seems to boot!
    I say seems to because it has no hard drive/cd/floppy/keyboard/mouse etc etc attached to it, so doesnt get past the POST, but its far better than it was this morning.

    Thanks a lot! :beer:
    Everyone needs a volume control -
    When you shout every day and make everthing a catastrophe,
    no one will hear you when you need to say something really important.
  • espresso
    espresso Posts: 16,448 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Presumably the jumper resets the BIOS to default settings. You may just need a new CMOS battery i.e. CR 2032
    :doh: Blue text on this forum usually signifies hyperlinks, so click on them!..:wall:
  • valleyk
    valleyk Posts: 21 Forumite
    Fantastic work professor Plum, hope all goes well:j
  • inamabilis
    inamabilis Posts: 198 Forumite
    Thought that was all going a bit too smoothly - powed up fine, gets in to a windows setup then suddenly theres an alarm noise (two tones, never ending) and the power goes dead.....
    Thats not good news
    Everyone needs a volume control -
    When you shout every day and make everthing a catastrophe,
    no one will hear you when you need to say something really important.
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