Computer wont boot

[marleymarl]

Ok here goes:

I was having a overheating issue with my Barton 2500.
It was running fine for a few weeks.

I bought a Volcano 7+ and a few more case fans and some cpu silver grease

I hooked it all up and turned it on.

I get nothing. some lights go on (cd -roms and floppy) but no video, nothing. I try and press the power button (nothing). I have to shut off the power supply power in the back to kill it.

I re-seat all my hardware a few times. At one point I get video and it freezes on the video card BIOS.

Then all subsequesnt boots go back to no video or anything and I always have to kill the power from the power supply.

I took out the mobo memory and left it out for a few hours to reset.

I swapped out CPU's. same result.

I but a PCI vid card in there. same result.

My Specs are ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Barton 2500
Leadtek Geforce4 Ti4400
512 MB Corsair XMS 3200 DDR RAM
Windows 2000
cd rom
cd burner
floppy
network card


Are they any tests I can do to see if it is/was my Mobo that is toasted ?

Are there any other tips or tests I can do to rule out other hardware?

Could it possibly be bad RAM?? Would my symptoms be comparible?

TIA for ANY help. I wanan exhaust all possibilities before I buy another MoBo. THANKS!

Some other things I tried.

I disconnected everything except vid card, ram and cpu. No good.

I cleared the CMOS via taking the battery out and also viz jumper settings.

I get no mobo beeps either.

[BigBlue66]

There is an LED on that motherboard that lights up green if the board is getting power as it should. Is it green? Is it even on?

I'm curious about the overheating issue. What exactly happened with that?

Do you have the CPU heatsink fan plugged into the 3-pin header on the motherboard?

Did you try reseating the ATX power supply connector on the motherboard? Maybe you bumped it or something.

What power supply do you have? What is its rating?

The easiest test you can do is swap out the PSU for a known good working unit. Do you have a spare one? Borrow one from a friend long enough to troubleshoot?

[marleymarl]

The LED on the MOBO is GREEN.

A few weeks in after building the machine i started to reboot randomly. I checked the cpu temp and it was around 70 celsius a few minutes after booting. WAY to high from what I read. I took the heatsink off (the one that came with the CPU) and it had that thermal pad on it. So I decided to buy a few more fans and a new heatsnk (Volcano 7+) and some silver thermal grease. I hooked it all up and nothing worked except for that one time i got the monitor to come on it went into the Video Card Bios and just froze there. Subsequent boots all go back to no video or post.

The cpu heatsink is in the 3 prong spot in the mobo and the fan is a spinning.

Yes I reseated the aTX plug into the Mobo.

I have an EnerMax EG465P 431 WATT PSU which are supposedly very good (I spent enough on it )

I have a 300 WATT PSU from my old machine, is it worth trying?

[BigBlue66]

Enermax, eh? Hmmm, well it's highly unlikely that the problem is with the PSU. But, it doesn't take much effort to swap in a different unit, so sure, go ahead and try it with the 300 watter.

You have tried different CPUS and video cards. If the PSU checks out, then that leaves only the motherboard or RAM.

Usually, RAM problems will just cause freezing. Heat will cause rebooting and that's certainly what happened. However, it would certainly be worth a shot to try different RAM if you can.

[fishybawb]

Did you check if the heatsink on the wrong way round when it was overheating? There's a little "step" in the bottom of the heatsink, which corresponds to the one on the socket. If it's the wrong way, the CPU gets too hot and the thermal protection'll shut it down.

[missiveusa]

Recheck your case wiring, especially any extra USB headers you might have installed.

Also double check that your case standoffs are properly installed and the board is not shorting out.

Let us know how it turns out...

[marleymarl]

Thanks for the tips!

Check this out, I submitted a form on an ASUS website someone reccommended on another site and someone from ASUS responded with this:

edit: this is the link ASUS complaint form

Dear User:
¡@
¡@¡@¡@Thank you for choosing ASUS, answer your question below..
¡@¡@¡@Please do the following steps :
1. Cut the power supply for your PC and make your PC case open ;
2. Take out the Cmos battery
3. Install your battery with "reverse side" that means turn the battery
180 degree and put in into battery socket
4. Hold about 30 seconds then take out the battery and install it
normally
5. Power on .
If there is no use , please contact where you buy, they will help you
to
send to repair.
If you still have any problem, please feel free to contact us.
Thanks!

I havent heard of trying that, but I'll give that a try first. Next thing I plan on doing, after that, is taking the whole board out of the case, putting it on a wooden table, hooking up the monitor and ram and see if that works. If that works then I know my case is shorting out somewhere.

If it doesnt work, then its either the RAM or fried MoBo. I will keep you posted. Thansk again.

[TweakerXP]

How did it turn out ??????

[lptech]

marleymarl-

Are you sure that your power supply is functioning properly? What happens if you disconnect the cd-rom drive or the cd burner? Does it boot OK? Have you tried testing everything outside of the case? Sometimes the case might be shorting out the motherboard.

Have you tried testing the CPU on another motherboard/system? That is if you know someone who has a motherboard/system that supports your CPU! I think that you might have a grounding problem and that is the reason that I've asked you whether you've tested it outside of the case. Let us know of your progress. Good luck!

LPTECH

[marleymarl]

I took all the advice from all of the forums I posted.

I did test the motherboard outside of the case and still got nothing.

Only things plugged in were Power, RAM, CPU and Video Card.

I ended up RMA'ing the mobo back to newegg, its currently in transit there.

If/When I get it back, I'll fire it up and see if it works and I'll let you all know what happens.

Thanks!

[TweakerXP]

NewEgg is great aren't they.......

Also ..WELCOME to Sysopts..............

LUK how it turns out.