got a problem, not sure if it's motherboard or cpu

[AtlasII]

Hi,

I have built the machine several months ago. My machine’s features are:

Motherboard: Asus A7V266 – E
CPU: Athlon 1600 XP AMD (1.4 GHz)
RAM: 512 MB PC2100 Kingston
Video: 32 MB Viper V770 Ultra (TNT2)
Harddrive: 20 GB Western Digital
O.S. Linux Redhat 7.1

The problem is that nothing comes on the screen, not even BIOS during the boot. When PC powers up, the red light came on for 2 seconds and that’s it. CD ROM’s light did came on but it lasted like 5 seconds.

I tried to unplug everything inside and put them back on. Nothing worked. I changed the power connectors to harddrive. Nothing. Then I changed harddrive (8 GB W.D.) and it didn’t work either. I switched the video card with other, nothing. So, I only could conclude that the problem could be either motherboard or CPU or both. How do I know which is working or which is not working?

Thanks.

 

[chaps]

Check the screws and mounts on the motherboard make sure you are not grounding the board someplace other than the grounding places. A quick test is to float the board on a non-conductive sheet of paper,plastic, or cardboard.

Mike

 

[Neo81]

Unplug everything and make sure the board and the cpu are the only things on there, well vid card if it isn't onboard and see if the pc will boot up then? if not then you know it is a issue with either the cpu or the mainboard, if that works then plug one thing in at a time to see what can be causing the short .....
Later
NEo81 >:O>

 

[Buggeroo]

Just a thought, but couldn't it be the power supply that was faulty? Might be worth considering.
Anyway, just a thought

Greg

 

[pcs800]

I agree about checking the power supply. Also, change the boards battery, a bad battery will do some funky things.

 

[AtlasII]

Know which good site that sells the battery for Asus A7V266-E?

Thanks.

 

[Thelemac]

If you're not getting any power at all, I'll put money on it being the PSU. Try unplugging it (from the wall) and trying to turn it on (this is an attmept to reset the breaker in it). At least, I think that's how you go about it. If you have another PSU, you could always try that, too. Would be a bit more conclusive. If not the PSU then it'll be the motherboard in this case.

If your stuff is powering up with nothing showing up on screen (ie fans running, discs spin up, etc) then my guess would go on the CPU being fried. If you have another AMD socket A processor you can stick it in there and try to boot it (make sure you clear the BIOS first, just a good idea when swapping CPUs).

 

[pcs800]

battery, you can get from walmart. Ask someone in electronics. Should cost you a whopping $1.50
Also, if you have bad, or unseated ram, you'll get nothing. Another thing, if your video is integrated (on board), add a video card and plug the monitor into that and see what happens. This is all assuming your power supply works. Do you get fans when you turn it on? any lights? If so, go with the afore mentioned, if not, go with the power supply gone bad thoery.

 

[AtlasII]

I checked the battery with battery test. It is good as what it says. I already did unscrew motherboard and tested it. Nothing worked. I also did try a video card pci type and it didn't work either. I tried these last night and later, the fans spinned for 10 seconds then suddenly stopped. But I did see motherboard's light on. I turned off the power and turned it on. Fans spinned for 10 seconds and stopped. I smelled something burn but it was gone few seconds later. I checked the bottom of AMD CPU and it looked fine.

It might to have be the motherboard.

Tomorrow, I'll go to a store and have them test my ram to see whether it works or not.

 

[Neo81]

I have just had this problem in the l;ast couple of days and it was the hdd that was shorting out the board.... you try and turn the machine on and the fans out spin a couple of times then stop no beep codes or anything I did try changing the psupply but then tried unpluging everything apart from the cpu and ram... pluggeg them all back in one by one until I found the faulty hardware ... just a thought....

Later
NEo81 >:O>

 

[Sportsdad]

Same thing happened with my new setup. Turns out the power supply was bad.....put in new one..same result. Seems I also got a bad stick of memory. Soon as that was replaced, everything started up right away. Before that change, the darn machine wouldn't even beep at startup. Even Kingston can get a bad one once in a while. Good luck.