Is it the motherboard, or CPU, or RAM ?

Walowiz

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My home built PC/Server/HTPC will not boot up at all, not even into the BIOS. It's an ASUS motherboard, with AMD Athlon XP, all a few years old now, but all good kit and more than up to the job. Prior to being shipped over here, it all worked perfectly.

All I have done is remove all the dust and clean it out, including the CPU, heatsink etc. Then re-assembled it all as I have done many many time before.

The light is on the Motherboard, all the case and cpu fans are working, as is the HDD. The PSU seems to be working correctly too.

I have removed all PCI cards and the ram, then powered it all on and there isn't even an error beep from the motherboard. Which there should be.

I have replaced the CMOS battery (although I cannot tell if the new - secondhand one has a charge). This made no difference.

So where am I going with this ?

Well I reckon the motherboard, or CPU are broken. But which ?

So... does the motherboard NEED a working CPU in order to report errors (that should be reported before the monitor displays the BIOS settings) ?

Anyone know any other tests I can perform to see which component has failed.

As I know I can go onto Fleabay and gradually buy Socket A spec parts secondhand and then test each potentially broken component on the new kit. But that sounds very time consuming. And if I have to buy another motherboard+CPU+ram, I may as well just bite the bulet and get later specced stuff.

Hope this makes sense.

thanks
Aaron
 
AaronDay said:
My home built PC/Server/HTPC will not boot up at all, not even into the BIOS. It's an ASUS motherboard, with AMD Athlon XP, all a few years old now, but all good kit and more than up to the job. Prior to being shipped over here, it all worked perfectly.

All I have done is remove all the dust and clean it out, including the CPU, heatsink etc. Then re-assembled it all as I have done many many time before.

The light is on the Motherboard, all the case and cpu fans are working, as is the HDD. The PSU seems to be working correctly too.

I have removed all PCI cards and the ram, then powered it all on and there isn't even an error beep from the motherboard. Which there should be.

I have replaced the CMOS battery (although I cannot tell if the new - secondhand one has a charge). This made no difference.

So where am I going with this ?

Well I reckon the motherboard, or CPU are broken. But which ?

So... does the motherboard NEED a working CPU in order to report errors (that should be reported before the monitor displays the BIOS settings) ?

Anyone know any other tests I can perform to see which component has failed.

As I know I can go onto Fleabay and gradually buy Socket A spec parts secondhand and then test each potentially broken component on the new kit. But that sounds very time consuming. And if I have to buy another motherboard+CPU+ram, I may as well just bite the bulet and get later specced stuff.

Hope this makes sense.

thanks
Aaron
Click to expand...

i had something similar, i removed the cmos battery and then removed the ram sticks 1 by 1. it was a faulty ram stick that caused my problems.
 
sounds very much like the power supply - i've had 3 similar failures

faulty components - ram - cpu etc - will give beeps on boot


check staticice for a cheap shop near you :thumb about $30 or so ?
 
Thanks chaps

Just to clarify: if the motherboard is faulty, there would also be no error beeps at boot ?
 
Problem found

Just been out to the garage and raided an old Pentium P4 box and used an old stick of RAM and one old PSU to at least rule out either of these components.

Once a replacement RAM stick was introduced to the system, the BIOS appears. The motherboard manual states that if no RAM is present, or if it is faulty, a Beep will occur. Clearly not. Clearly the motherboard will lie there all useless, until some new ram appears. Must remember that.

So the problem is my Crucial Ram stick. just how did that happen ?

The RAM is the only component that I haven't mucked around with and have taken care of whilst it hasn't been in the case ?

Off to fleabay.AU for a replacement, unless anyone knows of a cheap online retailer in AUS for RAM ?

Thanks for the help chaps
Aaron
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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