Looking for advice troubeshooting

Hello, this is my first time on this board. i have built many PC's and fixed many for friends and family so I think I know what is wrong but am looking for confirmation and ideas.

I have an Abit NF7-S rev. 2 with a 3200 XP barton 400 mhz, 1 gig of corsair XMS, Radeon 9800 pro.

I just installed a new 200 gig Maxtor SATA and turned my on 30 gig maxtor as a secondary, so did a fresh install of Windows on Saturday. I still use Win 2K and I had a few problems installing the latest catalyst drivers but got everthing working. Ive been doing my thing playing games and what not and not having any trouble.

Today I turned on Guild Wars for the first time in a few months and downloded all the patches, got into the login screen, but screwed up my password when I tried to log in and got an error message from the game saying I used the wrong password and then some code like (er=105) or something like that, I didnt write it down because I thought it was only game related.

But my system froze completely, I couldnt Ctr+Alt+del, I couldnt use reset button or on/off switch, I finally had to unplug it.

Now it wont post at all, I get LED's and the fans all come on but it wont even show the BIOS, it just sits there with the fans running and once again, I have to unplug it to shut down the fans and LED's. My thoughts are that the CPU fried, if the mother board was shot my instincts tell me that none of the headers for the fans work, but im not 100 % on that. I first thought it may be the video card but then noticed that the signature "beep" my computer emits during bootup was absent, so Im leaning toward the CPU, but not ruling out the mother board.

Looking for some trouble shooting.

Any help would be appreciated.

Did you check the psu, if possible try your stuff on another computer.

Hi and welcome to the forums!
Firstly were you overclocking at the time it crashed or was it at stock?
Also whilst the diagnosis of defective cpu may well turn out to be true (symptoms described are consistent with defective cpu) there could be other possible reasons such as RAM (perhaps just try one stick).

I would also strongly recommend you clear CMOS just to be sure that is not the problem.

Hello and thank you for the responses.

It was stock not overclocked, and I havent tried anything yet, I will clear the CMOS tonight after I get home from work.

I have my wifes system (which I am typing this on as we speak) I can take the psu out of it to try that, also thought about trying her vid card just to eliminate that as a possibility. Once I can roll up my sleeves and test these things I will post my results.

Thank you all for the help.

Ill be in touch.

Another trick you can try is press and hold the INSERT key as you press the power button. Try to clear the CMOS first tho.

I wouldn't recommend putting a working hardware on the defective computer, the reason being is that you don't know what has caused the problem, and it might kill other hardware that you put in to test, if it is something that you can get a replacement cheap then go for it, otherwise I don't suggest. I would try the stuff that is on your computer on hers instead.

AVG,

The problem with that is that her system is much lower end than mine and will not accept the RAM or CPU so I cannot run that kind of test. I understand what you are saying though, however my choices are limited, unless I go on a reckless spending spree to replace all the hardware that I suspect could be the culprit but I am trying to avoid that.

OK, I tried several things, I reset the CMOS, I put in an old AGP card lying around to see if I could get a BIOS and see if it was the Video card, swapped out the RAM, then at the end I put in a brand new power supply, nothing worked.

Is it the Mother board or the CPU is now the question?

My next step might be to pull the proc out and do a good inspection over everything (proc front and back, motherboard, maybe pull the RAM and look it over). If it all looks good put it back together and try to boot without any drives. As OC Detective recommended try turning on with each a single stick of RAM one at a time.

Which is in question? It's hard to say really. A single soldier joint on the back of the board, bad trace or bad chip can all make the RAM or CPU look bad on a board. If you felt like pulling the board and looking it over with a magnifying glass you mighty see something, but you also may not. Hopefully a good reseat will fix it.

Good luck.

I'm just taking a guess here, what is happening to your pc sounds a lot like when I screwed up my bios, by that I mean it was corrupted and it wouldn't even post, there was no fix unless I tried to hotflash it or RMA it which I did. Also I think there is greater chance that the mobo will fail instead of the cpu, because just having a look around the forums you'll see how much punishment these things can take, cracked core, fan failiure, high temps, even water accidents. I would RMA it or take the pc where someone would have the hardware to find out the source of the problem is, that that would probably cost you more.

Hello,

It turned out to be the CPU after all, I installed a new 3200+ barton and it booted right up, now I am getting a warning in my hardware moniter regarding the -5v (I also posted this under the PSU section, sorry for x posting). I have just installed the new power supply and its reading +3.55 under the -5v moniter and it has me worried. This is an area I do not know much about and im not sure which function the -5v provides power for. SHould I exchange the PSU or is there a deaper problem?

what kind of psu did you install?

with a 3200+, radeon 9800pro, gig of ram, 2 sata, and we don't know how many optical drives, a GOOD 400w would be minimal, but do note that even a crappy 500w could fail..

I only have one Dvd rom drive I leave the side of my case open to minimize my need for case fans, I was running at 40C last night.

Here is the PSU I bought:

http://www.pcclub.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A6213452

It looks like good PSU . Maybe your bios isn't reading corectly informations from the sensor chip .

I talked to the manufacturer they told me that AMD's do not use the -5v, that if for Intel, then I checked the BIOS and sure enough it shows 0.0 against the -5v, so Im not going to worry, its working great now.

Thanks for all the feedback and help everyone. I really appreciate it.