Boot problems

[abwood]

I have recently built the following PC:

Case: X-Dreamer II (with 420W PSU)
AMD CPU: Athlon 64 3200+
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F (nForce4)
DDR RAM: 1-GB (2x512-MB) Corsair Value PC3200
HD: 120GB Seagate Barracuda - SATA NCQ
CD/DVD-ROM:Gigabyte GOB-5232AW 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive
Video Card: GeForce 6800 GS 256MB - PCI Express

Things have been going great with this new machine for a few weeks until today. After enjoying an hour on WoW, I logged off and left the room. When I came back an hour or so later, the PC was off.

Hitting the power button in the front, all the fans power up, and leds start glowing. I think i hear the HD power up as well. Unfortunately this is all that happens. I never hear any startup beeps. The monitor never flicks on, it just says "Monitor is in power safe mode. Activate Using PC.". The CD-Rom drive is unresponsive -- pressing the eject button does nothing.

What I have tried (and hasn't changed anything noticable):
-Verified that all components and plugs are firmly in place
-Cleared the CMOS
-Removed the CMOS battery for a few minutes
-Unplugged everything, and pulled out Motherboard (looking for shorts)
-Removed RAM and booted (hoping to get some sort of diagnostic beep -- nothing)

I am thinking that this is a problem with the motherboard, but I am not 100% sure. Any suggestions. I still have about 10 days left on my warranty, so i need to make sure that if I do have a faulty component, that it is the correct one.

Thanks in advance.

[fleeingpepper]

I'd guess dead power supply. What brand is the PSU?

[abwood]

Its a TurboLink.

Since all the fans, leds, and LCD temperature panel are all running just fine, I was thinking that the problem is not with the PSU.

[Alaron]

First step is this: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=12753
I know you took the board out to look for shorts, but you need to also try to boot up out of the case. If it won't post out of the case, one of your components is faulty.

Turbolink is on our bad list of power supplies. It is very likely that it died on you. If you can find another power supply, test the system with that.

[abwood]

Thanks for the link. Would you believe that I *tried* to boot from outside the case with minimal components connected. The only thing that stopped me from following through with this is that I couldn't hook up the power switch. Never thought to use a screwdriver .... I guess this is my next step.

One thing regarding the link you gave:

If all is well, it should power up and you should get a display. If not, then you most likely have a faulty component.

I think the big question is how do you know which component is faulty. There have been 2 posts suggesting a bad powersupply, however I don't see how all (6) fans and leds are running when I power up. If the power supply was bad, wouldn't these also not work?

Again, thanks for your replies thus far.

[Alaron]

The power supply uses different power rails to drive different components. So its possible that the fans can run, but the power supply cannot push enough juice to power up the whole system.

Let us know how it goes out of the case.

[abwood]

Well, I performed the 10 steps here: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=12753

Still nothing showing up on the monitor ... and no beeping (no post). I must say, it was invigorating to start the system with a screwdriver.

I guess this means that I either have a bad motherboard, bad videocard, bad cpu, or bad PSU. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how I can test which one is bad, as I do not have backups lying around. I just have 2 extra laptops.

[abwood]

Well, I bought a power supply tester, and it appears that my power supply is working properly. Furthermore, I decided to upgrade my power supply to an Antec 430W. Although I didn't mount it in my case yet, I tried using this power supply externally (as a test), and this did not correct my problem.

Now this initially leads me to believe that the problem is with the Graphics Card. One concern of mine is that the since the CD-ROM Drive will not respond to the eject button, perhaps that instead, the problem may be the motherboard.

Yet another bonehead observation. I don't think i have a speaker on the motherboard that would produce the beeps that I seem to be lacking. I have the speaker attachment that came with the case, but I don't have any place to plug it on the motherboard.

[abwood]

Well, just for some closure I'd like to explain the outcome of my situation. Hopefully others can gain something from this. It took a few more tests, but I found the problem. It turns out that when I unplugged the ide cable from my CD-ROM drive, it magically responded to open/close requests. Coupled with the information given in my previous post, I was able to narrow the problem down to either a bad motherboard or bad processor. After shelling out $25, I was able to have a local computer repair shop test all my components, but most importantly the motherboard and processor.

The verdict is in, and the motherboard was infact the culprit. Thanks to those that have helped me out. These forums have proven to be very useful.

-Alex