Computer Question - 5-15-05

horn blooded

horn blooded

100+ Posts
I've messed w/ computers for years, but my buddy's computer has got me stumped.

MB - Shuttle AN35N Ultra
CPU - Athlon XP 1900+
RAM - 512MB PC2700

The thing will not boot from WinXP CD. Heck, I can't even get to the CMOS. It just sits there. The fans are on, but the BIOS doesn't run a memory test or anything.

Any suggestions?
 
does it have any internal speakers that might give off any boot codes?

if you have a high end video card (say 6800 and up), be sure the vid card has the seperate power cable going to it.

make sure nothing metal is touching the mobo or any other parts (especially the standoffs).
 
I had the same problem with a similar Shuttle MB. My Nvidia video card wasn't seated in the AGP slot correctly. I had to really play with the insertion to get it to 'click' into proper position. Hope this helps.
 
Make sure you monitor is working first. No need to troubleshoot the rest of the system till you have known good video working.

Once you are sure you have a working monitor, sure you are sure, then getting to the bios/cmos is the next thing in my opinion. That means having video display on the monitor during the initial phases of the booting process. This before the system even gets to thinking about operating system loading from the hard drive.

If you monitor is good, make sure your video card has not wiggled loose a bit from the slot before trying any removing of other cards.

Be systematic with your troubleshooting while trying to establish what you know does work and doesn't. Then you build back up. It is a matter of how much time you want to spend on it too. You can work you way down then back up once you have a known good system, or go barebones and then work your way back up. Different people troubleshoot no-post/no-video issues differently.

Not knowing the full configuration of your computer let me just say that typically you can have in you computer a motherboard, video card, monitor, ram, keyboard only connected and you should be able to get to the bios. If you have a short from some other piece of hardware or a conflict from a new piece of hardware(as intimated above with the question about new hardware recently being added) it could possibly be causing your problem. This is a bit of scattershooting given this forum has limitations on support.

This may seem funny but if your computer has the fans running but you see nothing on the screen the monitor may be unplugged or turned off.
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Let us know what happens.
 
could be the mobo itself. When you press the power button and it whirrs/does nothing, what happens when you press the cold reboot button?
 
Power supply is good - lights on the MB

This thing has killed a video card in the past, but I don't think thats it.

I don't hear the HDs spin up or the memory test. The HD light blinks once and then is on solid. I hit the reset button and the CDRoms spin again and the HD light blinks once.
 
Do you have an old PCI video card laying around for troubleshooting? If so, remove the AGP card and disconnect everything else. Try booting with just the PCI video and one stick of mem. If it posts to the BIOS, start connecting devices one at a time.
 
i had a similar problem and it ended up being that one of the dimm chips had popped *slightly* lose when i was installing a hard drive... took me a week of screwing with it before i finally put it in the shop, where they figured it out pretty quickly.

i'd make sure everything is plugged in properly, and if possible, testing it with a PCI vid card might be a good idea to at least see if you can pinpoint the problem. (edit: as previous poster suggested
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)
 
-Monitor is good.
-The video card is new. It's good unless the MB is shorting it out.
-Power supply is powering up the video card fan, system fan, CPU fan, CDRom drives, and external LEDs. I switched the device plugs around and nothing changed.
-The video card and memory are seated properly.
-No Bios beep at power up.
 
If you still don't have it figured out after days of part time working on it I suggest you strip it down to the bare bones to remove any doubts about the motherboard being the issue.

Do this by unplugging the data cables, while noting where they are to be replaced in all cases before you disconnect, removing all the cards except the vid card and the ram chips.

Your sole goal is to get the motherboard, video card(connected to powered up known good monitor), ram, powersupply, and keyboard to bring up the bios/cmos. If that basic of a setup doesn't get you video then it is possibly the video card or the motherboard.

Has anything been added since the machine last worked?
 
MB is fairly new, system is 4 years old.

My friend has been having problems with this PC since he bought it. It has had at various times a new MB, new power supply, new hard drive, and three people working on it.

I reset the BIOS. I remove all devices except HD and Video card. I replaced the battery. The only difference is that the HD LED is not on all the time now. No beep, no memory test, no text on monitor.

I think it is time for a new computer.
 
That is a lot of problems in that machines history. What kind of new system is he going to buy?
 
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