Motherboard or SPU Issue...

[mahleumon]

My computer has been working fine for over a year and just one day it stopped working.

When I turn it on all I get is a black screen. My power seems fine and my cpu load light comes on for a bit and goes back off. I really don't hear a hard drive churn at all. I have tested out my moniter, video card, and memory. Memory I took out each one and tested using one stick at a time. All are working, except I really can't test the memory unless I buy more. I also tried taking out everything and testing with only videocard, memory, cpu, and each of my two hard drives by themselves. All with no luck. I have reset the bios and still am having problems. The only other concern of mine is when I took out my cpu I knowest some thermal paste next to the cpu socket. I have since bought some aserton and have dealt with that.

I know I could just go out and buy a new motherboard, cpu, and most likely new memory; but that is the last thing I want right now.

Any help would be great, but I know I am probably out of luck.

[mrrobotto]

Specs please!

[mahleumon]

P4 2.4 800fsb HT
Abit IC7
Geil Dual channel DDR 3200 Two 256
ATI 9500 PRO 128
Two maxtor 40gig hard drives 7200rpm Not set up in Raid
Sony 52x cd burner
Pacific Digital DVD Burner 4x
LG DVD 16x Drive
Soundblaster Audigy soundcard
ata 100 ide card (only the sony 52x burner plugged into it)
netgear 10/100 ethernet card
ati wonder pro tv tuner card remote wonder
I forget who makes the heatsink but it was the best one I could buy at the time.
z-560 speakers
Two moniters Envision and AOC
logitech MX700 mouse and logitech elite keyboard
Lemark z65 printer

I think thats it. Like I said though, I have taken everything out and tried to boot with the most basic setup and still no boot.

[BipolarBill]

Read here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm

Abit is still plagued with bad capacitors.

[mrrobotto]

What size psu do you have? Might be your problem. If you don't hear the hdd's spin up that would be an indication. If your pulling that 12v rail down to far the cpu won't work either. Its probably got weak over time.

You got to consider the load you've had on it for that year.

[Vampiel]

Do you have a different video card you can try? Did you check the voltage on the battery, or get a new one, they are dirt cheap.

[mahleumon]

Well let me tell you about what has happened in the past. I'm not sure you know about the power outage that the East Coast had last year. Well when it happened my computer was on and made some terrible noises. When it was all over I tried to turn my computer on and nothing. Well I thought I figured out that the problem was the video card and I bought a second ATI 9500 card to resolve this issue. Well and behold, I put the card in and the computer has worked fine since then. I really don't know if it did more damage or that it was a fluke that it turned on. Since then I have put that card into my other computer and it has worked fine, so that is how I know that the video card is fine.

The battery is also fine, because I took the battery out of my working computer and they use the same one. That didn't help.

My psu is a 400 watt one. I believe that it is possible with the addition of the new ati wonder card and the possible damage that happened during that power surge, that it finally ran down.
Now it is still powering up my computer, is it possible that it just isn't giving enough juice for it to load correctly?

[mrrobotto]

Yes, it's possible. You could try and unhook everyting except for the bare minimum. One hdd, no optical drives, one stick of ram, and the video card and monitor. That will take some of the load off of the psu and it might be enough to get it to boot up.

The only other way is to actually try another psu.

There's a sticky at the top with a link to a power calculator. Try it and see what power consumption you come up with for everything that you are running.

[Direct1]

I would try a different PSU (borrow one if you can). The MB is the next most likely thing wrong. Good luck!