Computer rolled over and died

[angryamish]

Alright, figured I'd join a new community and try my luck here. All of my geeky friends have thus far been unable to help me.

Long story short, is that my PC won't boot anymore. Won't eve make it to POST. The system and components are a few years old, but I've never had problems until recently. Everyone assumed it was the power supply, because it would randomly shut down, doing random things. Watch a video for too long? Shuts down. Open Photoshop? Same deal. Halfway through a virus scan? Ditto.

So I got the new supply (old one was 400w), this one is 550w. I connected everything properly. I hit the power button on the case, mobo lights up. CD/DVD drives spin up, fans are moving, but that's all. I never make it to POST. No beeps, nothing. So I figure hey I'll put the other PSU back in, so I can get online at least and figure something out.

...I get the same problem. Old PSU leads to power, but no POST. I put the new one back in. I yank the CMOS jumper. I turn the PSU off before plugging the AC cable in. I remove all the RAM, all connected cables, cards, etc. Nothing works.

So there it is in a nutshell, forum-goers. First time visitor, first post, and I beseech you. All signs point to a possibly bad mobo or CPU, but I'm hoping it won't go that far.

[catacon]

First off, could you post all the specifications of the computer, especially the power supply. Is this a self-built computer or did you buy it from Dell, Gateway, etc. Also, you should try this guide to see if the motherboard is shorting out to the case. Make sure the motherboard is entirely out of the case.

[angryamish]

Asus A7V8X-X motherboard
AMD AthlonXP 2200+
512MB RAM
CD burner
DVD burner
D-Link NIC card
Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200
Soundblaster Live! card
Logisys 550w PSU
POWMAX CP0327PL-4 case

[Cricket]

Try this out-of-case-troubleshooter and let us know what happens. Be sure to take the motherboard out of the case and only connect the parts necessary to get POST...don't connect the drives or any PCI expansion cards.

What hard drive are you using?

What brand was the other power supply?

Cricket

[jgilbreath04]

same thing that cricket said, although before you start that, have you made sure you axillary mother board power is plugged in? (the 4 plug molex that plugs into the motherboard) that sounds like a possible thing that has been overlooked when installing and uninstalling power supplies

[angryamish]

I downloaded a .pdf of the manual for my motherboard last night. Nothing in it really helped me at all. I've tried two different hard drives, different sticks of RAM, nothing is working. The old PSU was a 400w like, Powmax or something, I don't recall offhand & it's on the other side of the room right now.

I tried that troubleshooter and got the same result. System powers on, CD drives spin up, fans spin, but it doesn't POST. I don't see a spot, either, for a 4-pin molex connector on the mobo...