have i killed my mobo?

i decided to clean out my pc (specced in my sig), it was coated in dust and thought a good clean would do my temps good. blew out things with a small blower until i removed as much dust as i could, unlciding my HSF, which i removed and reseated. i also tried a bit of wire management with my psu, and removed an unneeded second optical drive (just a dvd rom drive).

anyway, i put everything back together, and tried a boot. it went for about 8 seconds, then turned off, then started again (it does this after a failed overclock, so i expected an "overclock failed" message.

but i got no post at all on screen. and no beeps from my motherboard (but to be honest i'd never heard it beep). the mobo's green light is on, and all fans whirr, and i hear the disc drive moving (can also feel the harddrives vibrating)

i've tried all 4 dvi ports on my graphics card, removed 2 sticks of ram, mixed and matched, tried with one stick, tried with both single graphics cards, even tried my old geforce 6600. no post messages, just fans on all day. my monitor definitely works, because i tried it with my laptop.

i'm looking for my old pentium 4 processor, see if it fails to boot with that, but i'm personally stumped. if there's one thing i take precautions on it's my computer. i even use the blasted anti static straps...

any help? anything i can try? i'm shocked that a motherboard can just die after cleaning out the fans...

thanks in advance
any ideas?

wiggle the video card a little. Probably a bad connection in the PCI-E slot. Also, make sure (If you have it) that your video card has the external power connected as well...

EDIT: Be sure your CPU fan is connected to the mobo as well...

i don't think there's anything i haven't tried, save testing a different processor.

i've made sure all power connectors are firm - any firmer and they'd bust right through. the screen backlight hasn't even turned on.

i don't want a dead mobo on my hands

EDIT: tried with my old psu. had to use my old graphics card, because it didn't have any pci power sockets. same old no post thing. *sigh*...

I had the same problem the other day. I forgot what I did as I tried almost everything. I believe that resetting the BIOS in the MOBO was the trick. Look up in your manual to see how to reset the BIOS and give that a try.

tried that - cleared cmos, and when that didn't work, removed the battery and cleared cmos.

i am now a shell of whoever i once was... that's the last time i ever clean a computer

Did you see if it will post with no cards in the PCI slot's and your hard drives disconnected.

take it out of the case and bench test it sounds like it may have a short somewhere best of luck
Rich

I had the same thing happen to me the other day too. The whole thing was really dirty, so I cleaned that and hope that was what the problem was. I'm not really sure how I fixed it. I took it all out of the case and unplugged everything, and checked it and it started up for a bit, then it would stop. Still not sure why. I got it working somehow, and put it all back together piece by piece. I also installed a fresh OS. It seems to be working fine now. I guess my advise is to take everything apart and then try it out. Put it all back together one thing at a time. And keep going, you will get it working. Good luck.

yog said:

I had the same thing happen to me the other day too. The whole thing was really dirty, so I cleaned that and hope that was what the problem was. I'm not really sure how I fixed it. I took it all out of the case and unplugged everything, and checked it and it started up for a bit, then it would stop. Still not sure why. I got it working somehow, and put it all back together piece by piece. I also installed a fresh OS. It seems to be working fine now. I guess my advise is to take everything apart and then try it out. Put it all back together one thing at a time. And keep going, you will get it working. Good luck.

Click to expand...

having removed it from the case (left the psu in the case, so it looked like my pc just vomited violently) it decided it wanted to post.

now i've spend the last half hour trying to convince the motherboard that there is a harddrive installed. i'll work on it in the morning, i might do more harm than good. but my gosh, that was the single most frustrating afternoon i've ever experienced. thanks, for the support, guys.