Fix My Computer

1st Official Post

    Ok, So my desktop is dead. This is what happened.

    Occasionally, especially while gaming, but more recently even in idle, my computer would freeze up and i would have to turn it off and restart it. well, then it just would not restart. It would begin to turn on, but would not boot up. I thought maybe my cpu cooling was bad, i had a factory cooler on there that i put on after my water cooling crapped out a few years ago. So i thought i would clean it up and put on a new cooler. Did that but then my PC wouldnt even turn on. The mother board would light up (it has some blue leds on it) but would not power on at all. So i am wondering what you guys think. Now the blue leds dont light up at all, i am thinking either my power supply is shot or my mother board is shot. Is there any way to figure it out, unfortunately i do not have another power supply laying around, but i do have some old ass mother boards.


    Im afraid if i buy a new power supply it will have been my mother board. unfortunately i dont have the money to buy both a power supply and a mother board/cpu so i need to diagnose the problem as cheaply as possible.

    The computer is over three years old.

    Your in luck... my day job is fixing PC's!!

    There are loads of reasons why your PC would have died initially, however the not booting problem is easier so lets start there!

    First of all, turn the PC off at the wall and remove the power lead for a few seconds, while the power lead is removed, press the power button to discharge any static electricity stored in the power supply.

    Then try and turn it on, If it doesn't boot up then try the follow:

    1-Open the case,
    2-Unplug/removed everything from your mother board including the RAM and CPU, you should just have a motherboard with power cables going into it.
    3-Then turn it on, if your motherboard is working fine then it will beep like crazy at you, you dont need a keyboard/mouse/monitor at this point
    4-If it beeps your Motherboard should be ok
    5-Then start refitting your parts one at a time (start with the CPU: it should beep again but a different pattern of beeps)(Then add the RAM, once the RAM and CPU are in then the beeping should stop)
    6-If the beeping has stopped then refit your graphics card, and reboot and see if it boots (Leave your Hard drive unplugged at this point)
    7-If you see the BIOS and magic words "No boot device, Insert boot media and restart" then there is a good chance that all your hardware is working ok.
    8-Now refit your hard drive and see what happens

    Note:

    At stage 3, if nothing happens when you turn your PC with only your motherboard connected, then either your PSU or motherboard has died, easy way to check is plug in a fan to the motherboard, if it spin's your getting power and the motherboard is more than likely dead

    Note 2:

    At stage 7 go into the BIOS and check the temperatures, normally under PC Health section or something like that.


    Let me know how you get on and good luck!

    OSF-Yoda.png

    i removed cpu, video card, sound card, unplugged hard drives. plugged in power supply, got nothing, no beeps or anything. the blue led's on my mother board light up, no fans turn though.

    when i plugged it in to my wifes pc, the fans turned and the fan on the power supply turned. does it sound like a mobo issue?

    No problem,

    If your power supply works in another PC then that is good news, It's pointing towards a motherboard issue from what you've said.

    What Motherboard do you have? Do you know what the blue LED's mean? Are the Phase lights, power status etc?

    OSF-Yoda.png

    i have a striker extreme mobo, the lights are on there to make it easier to do stuff. there is a power button, a reset button, and a clr/cmos button (these three are not lighting up, only the blue lights "strategically placed to help you work on the mobo" are lighting up. i think its dead.

    Quote from "NecessaryEvil";p="11022"

    Striker Extreme...that's a socket 775 board? Do you plan on replacing the just the mobo or are you gonna go 1155?

    yes, its a 775. i will probably buy another 775. when i am ready to upgrade to a new pc i will do it all at once. i still have ddr2 ram, and when i upgrade will be getting ddr3. but can not afford all that at the moment.

    Edited once, last by Bigvisk (July 6, 2015 at 9:38 PM).

    • Official Post
    Quote from "Bigvisk";p="11026"

    yes, its a 775. i will probably buy another 775. when i am ready to upgrade to a new pc i will do it all at once. i still have ddr2 ram, and when i upgrade will be getting ddr3. but can not afford all that at the moment.


    if you need new ddr2 it's more expensive than ddr3. so dont plan to be buying more ddr2 anytime soon (unless it's used).

    • Official Post

    Sounds like he just wants a cheap mobo to keep him going on his current hardware for another year or so. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the striker extreme was a rather high-end board with nvidia's 680i chipset. If you didn't have any problems with it, maybe you want to consider another mobo with an nvidia chipset from EVGA's B-stock page...they only come with a 30 day warranty, but they shouldn't be any less reliable and they're dirt cheap. I was looking at this board a few weeks ago http://www.evga.com/products/enlarge.asp?pn=113-YW-E115-RX&I=1 but I ended up building a new machine instead. You might not be able to get extreme overclocks or SLI/crossfire support, but for $40 shipped you can keep your current memory and processor...should hold you over until you're ready to pull the trigger on a new machine in the future.

    EDIT: ok it looks like they just ran out of that mobo but here's a link to EVGA's B-stock page...if you're interested, you can have them notify you when it's available http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=20

    p.s. I don't actually own an EVGA mobo, but I can vouch for their support...easily the best

    • Official Post

    you can pick up an x48 board with ddr2 but it's essentially a x38 board then...
    i can vouch for EVGA's support too, quick and painless. however, i never purchased a b-stock product from them. performance wise there is almost no difference between nvidia 6 series 7 series and intel 3 and 4 series chipsets. just that the intel ones only supper crossfirex and the nvidia ones only support sli.

    • Official Post

    If you're in a hurry and the duct tape route is really what you're interested in, then I think this one will do and it's $20 lol (plus $5 shipping) http://www.evga.com/products/enlarge.asp?pn=112-CK-NF70-RX&I=1

    Looks like it has a single pci-e x16 slot for one of your 5850's and it says it supports Core 2 quads :wink: the only problem could be the lack of ram slots. If you have 1GB modules, then 2GB total might not be enough. If you currently have 2GB modules, then 4GB total is all you need for gaming and you'll be golden.

    link to b-stock page: http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=20