Computer won't turn ON

Lately when I press the power button my case lights up and everything starts running inside, but the monitor fails to display any signal input. After several attempts I finally got it to boot, but this is starting to happen more and more frequently and it takes more tries each time to get it to boot up. When it does not work I can't even get the BIOS boot up screen, its as if the connection between the computer and the monitor is not there? I am doing some Orthos testing to try and isolate the RAM or the CPU, but what else could this be caused by? BTW, PC was completely Orthos 24h stable and video card was tested with 3DMArk05/06 for 12h straight. No problems over the last 2 years or so prior to the last week when this started happening.

Might also be a graphics card issue, I think I've had a few times where this happens because of the graphics card.

It is happening more often, I turn on the PC everything in the case lights up but the mouse, keyboard lights and screen remain unchanged.

Have you got a BIOS speaker plugged into your motherboard? If it's the graphics card it should produce a specific beep to inform you that the graphics card is bust.

Neural Net said:

Have you got a BIOS speaker plugged into your motherboard? If it's the graphics card it should produce a specific beep to inform you that the graphics card is bust.

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Do I enable that option through BIOS or is it somewhere on my Motherboard?

tranceaddict said:

Do I enable that option through BIOS or is it somewhere on my Motherboard?

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It should be on your motherboard, but not all come with one. There will be pins on yours to install one, they look like this:



You should be able to pick one up at any PC store and your mobo manual should tell you where to install it.

While this is a long shot, it could be the CPU that fried. I had a brand spanking new Pentium Pro 200 (remember those??) and one day I turned on my system and the video wasn't displaying, it came down to being the CPU. Another time when I was working at HP, they had a system that would turn on but like the first time, no video. After going through the "usual suspects", I swapped out the CPU and it worked again.

While I am not too sure about the latest technology (CPU's, MB's, RAM. I have been out of the field for awhile), always think of things that are the most unlikely as well.

Here is the really wierd thing that I discovered. Now, everytime I try to turn it on there is no video and the monitor does not light up. However, if I power the PSU to OFF and unplug the PSU power cable then plug it back in and turn it on the PC will boot up normally everytime? Any ideas?

Sounds like PSU is about to go ka-boom. PSU that can't warm boot and requires removing the external power is likely to fail soon.

The PSU is only 1 year old, it's strange.

4GHZ_or_bust said:

Sounds like PSU is about to go ka-boom. PSU that can't warm boot and requires removing the external power is likely to fail soon.

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tranceaddict said:

The PSU is only 1 year old, it's strange.

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Says he has a corsair, those are known for being pretty reliable.

I have a system like this here. If you try to power cycle with the switch it just sits there. You have to pull the power plug and then it will restart normally. I've taken to just leaving it on all the time. Brand new FSP power supply. Memtest says the RAM is fine and the system runs all day with Linux Mint...zero issues except the power cycle thing. This is the third PSU in the system with the same issue. I would begin to look harder at the CPU, or maybe at the BIOS.

Socket 939 X2 for reference.

Edit: the original issue with this system was a failed hard disk. It shorted internally and took the cheapie X-Qpack2 PSU down with it.

I can only imagine something shorting the motherboard or maybe the nvidia solder problem.

I just looked at a award motherboard manual (looking up a biostar p4m80-m4) they give 3 types of beeps one for video, one for ram and one for cpu. they mostly just give 1 single beep for post-ok. if you don't even get to any beeps then i'd start thinking it's the motherboard or psu or a short somewhere before the system even has a chance to start(assuming you have award bios or bios with beep codes).

last time this happened to me it was a psu though but I didn't have anything in the case moving at all or lighting up except 5vsb light which is always on.

excessive heat will kill even the best psu. I think they are rated to operate at around 50c (probably why a good case with airflow is worth it)

what you can try is disconnecting everything including cpu ram and video card and harddrive.

setup your system(ok just motherboard) to be in the same conditions when it doesn't boot then with bare motherboard, start the computer. it should at least power on. and if it can at least power on, it should at least do power on self test for when you have everything assembled and only cpu ram or video/ harddrive is failing.

this rules out the motherboard and you are going to need the motherboard post test to help determine which other component is the culprit.

i'd start with the motherboard speaker header or just hack saw one together out of an old headphone. a cd rom drive with a linux live cd would help(rule out harddrive), ubuntu, knoppix. (ubuntu would probably have better support since i couldn't get knoppix to boot on newer hardware).

no monitor on start up

Can you tell me which operating system your using. Or did you mention already and I missed. I'm a noob so don't give my ideas too much credance lol. But I had something similar happening for awhile--even the unplugging of the power cable etc. And it turned out that with my step up to WIN7 there were some settings in power management that were causing the problem. Things in power management/sleep etc were set that "the power button couldn't power off the system etc" all kinda weird I thought. But I changed those settings and from then on my monitor powered up just fine etc. This probably doesnt' apply to you, but if you did change to WIN7 you might check into this. Things work great now. Your monitor could somehow be in sleep mode or ? etc.

I don't think it is my OS, but I have XP. So it is final, nothing I do will work anymore, for a good month unplugging the PSU cord caused it to boot up fine. I have got hold of another video card and the same problem still presists. I just took out my PSU and should be getting one tomorrow to test it out. I hope that it is the PSU and not the CPU as my PSU is still under warranty.

Well I wanted an instant solution to this problem so I went out and bought a Corsair 750HX PSU and to my dismay it did not solve the problem. Now since I can't return it back am going to sell my old one on ebay. I am also pretty certain right now that the problem is with the CPU. Since my CPU is 2 years old I am going to RMA it as I do not want to lose any more money. Is there any chance that the problem is with the Motherboard?