New PC, good for a month, now blank screen

[Maulerbro]

I build a pc that worked ok for about a month. The only problems were that every once in a while is the screen would go black with a few hundred small red lines scattered around, or it would restart by itself. When the screen would go black with the red lines, restarting always resolved the problem. About a week ago the PC was off for about a day and when I turned it on, the screen stayed black even though the PC seemed to boot normally otherwise. I connected the screen to another PC and it worked ruling out the screen problem. Next I proceeded to disconnect everything (harddrive, cdrom, etc...) except the monitor, keyboard and RAM. The screen still did not power up. I tried RAM that I knew was good and that did not help either. Then I jumpered the MB and removed the battery to reset the bios. Still nothing. I tried a PS that was known to be good and that did not help either. Finally, I ordered a new MB since it had an integrated video card. This didn't help either. Now I;m thinking it must be the CPU, right? Should I try a PCI Express video card, or do you think it could be a second bad MB? I'd really like to only replace what is needed to save money so any advice would help. Thanks!

Here is the hardware:

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
-AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Orleans 2.4GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA3800CWBOX
-ECS GeForce6100SM-M (1.0) AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100S Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
-Athenatech A100BB.270 Black Steel Desktop / Mini Tower Convertible Case Computer Case 270W Power Supply
-OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2G8002GK

[shadowpr]

Did you try updating the drivers for your video?

[Cricket]

Did the first motherboard have on-board video too?

What brand and model were each of the motherboards you used?

The problem you describe sounds like a bad video card to me but if the monitor used a detachable video cable you might want to try replacing that before you buy anything else.

It doesn't sound like a CPU problem to me.

Wait...you're only using a 270 watt power supply? You mentioned another power supply...how many watts did that one have? A computer like yours needs at least 350 watts from a good quality power supply...I really don't think the 270 watt PSU in the Athenatech case was a good quality unit.

Cricket

[Maulerbro]

Thanks both of you for the info. Unless I'm missunderstanding, I can't update the video drivers because I can't see anyhting on the screen. Both of the motherboards were the same, with integrated video cards (ECS GeForce6100SM-M (1.0) AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100S Micro ATX AMD Motherboard). The other PSU that was used only a 250 Watt from an old PC I had laying around. I will give a good quality powersupply a shot tonight. I tried the monitor on another PC with the same cable and it worked fine so I'm pretty sure the cable is not the problem. Thanks again.

[Cricket]

That motherboard uses a 24 pin power connection...did the power supplies have a 24 pin power connector? Did you plug in the other 4 pin power connector too?

Make sure the new power supply you get is a ATX 2.0 or higher with a proper 24 pin motherboard power connector.

Cricket

[Maulerbro]

Ok, I finally got around to getting a new power supply. The power suppy is an Athena Power AP-MP4ATX40 MicroATX 400W Power Supply 115/230 V. It has the 24 pin connector that the motherboard requires. I made sure that the transformer was set to 115V incomming and then connected the power supply to motherboard (24pin main power, 4 pin cpu power). With only one stick of RAM, the monitor and the keyboard connected there is still no image on the screen. I also tried two other stick of RAM. There are no beeps or any other noises (besides the cpu fan) when powering up. I am getting extremely frusterated and any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

[Cricket]

Is the motherboard in or out of the case right now?

Cricket

[Maulerbro]

Out of the case.

[Cricket]

Sounds like your motherboard died.

Cricket

[Maulerbro]

Yeah, I have two of them onhand right now though, and neither one works. Can I really be that unlucky to have two new motherboards that are junk?

[Ahura]

Law of probability is indiscriminate.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Maulerbro Yeah, I have two of them onhand right now though, and neither one works. Can I really be that unlucky to have two new motherboards that are junk?

ECS motherboards are not known for their reliability...at one time I heard their DOA rate right out of the box was around 30%.

Cricket