No beeps, no video, no hope?

[keith_leitch]

Greetings, all,

After six months away, I have returned to a non-functioning media centre. Before I left, I backed it up and packed it carefully into a box in a self-storage facility; since it came out of the box undamaged, I can't see many reasons that it shouldn't "just work..." but it doesn't.

When I first started up, the machine kicked me straight to CMOS settings, with a complaint that the time needed to be reset. Perhaps the onboard battery had drained. I set the time, and restored some other changed defaults, then saved the CMOS.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten about replacing my original, onboard HDMI controller with a newer card, so by enabling HDMI, I actually lost the ability to use it. No problem; I switched to VGA, and agreed to let the system restore CMOS defaults due to some conflicts it detected. I then waited for the long boot and numerous complaints about out-of-date virus-checking software. I then issued a soft restart. The computer seemed to shut down normally.

That was the last I saw of it. Each subsequent restart results in fans spinning, but not much else. Devices "light up" in the USB ports, but I cannot tell if they system is reading them or not. I don't think I hear drives reading after the initial spin-up, but it's hard to tell over the noise of the fans. I have tried to issue the remote commands that I programmed for it to "sleep," and it hasn't "slept," so I don't think it is booting. I certainly don't hear any system beeps, or see any video, even on an external monitor. I have attempted at least four times to remove the battery and use the jumper settings to reset the CMOS, to no avail.

Other than the obvious "solution" of building and installing a whole new system (which I will never have time to do), does anyone have any suggestions?

P.S. I have now put a tester to the onboard battery, which is issuing the 3V that it is supposed to.

[imilne]

Disconnect everything that isn't needed for a basic boot, leaving just the processor (and fan), memory, and whatever you need for VGA out (either onboard or graphics card, but if you have both available, lose the graphics card). Get that working first - or confirm it really is dead - before worrying about what Windows might be doing.

Iain

[keith_leitch]

Disconnect everything that isn't needed for a basic boot, leaving just the processor (and fan), memory, and whatever you need for VGA out (either onboard or graphics card, but if you have both available, lose the graphics card). Get that working first - or confirm it really is dead - before worrying about what Windows might be doing.

Iain

Good advice, thank you. There was a glimmer of hope for a moment there; when I removed the external graphics card, the onboard VGA came back to life. However, the boot drive was missing from the list (which is strange, since it was booting from it earlier this evening), so I disconnected the power to trace some SATA cables. I unplugged one to see which drive it is, but when I attempted to reboot...same symptoms. No beeps, no video. Plugging the SATA cable back in did not help. Help!

[stustunz]

unplug everything from motherboard and any other connecting cables then plug it all back in
-the power cable from the power supply to the motherboard
-even the ram
only plug in the hard drive with the operating system on it remove all others
also try safe mode boot hitting f2 or delete or what ever your board requires to get into safe mode then once loaded restart normally

[keith_leitch]

Thanks. Is unplugging the SATA cables from the motherboard as good as taking out the hard drives? The latter would be hours of work.

Otherwise, I have tried everything you suggested, except that I didn't remove the RAM yet. There is no change. I would be tempted to think that the motherboard is fried, except that it came back to life that once during the night. That is the weirdest part about this; not once, but twice through two video adapters, the machine booted (at least to the CMOS), then after two or three boots did this. Twice: there must be a cause.

[ACTCMS]

Have you thought about testing your PSU output?

[keith_leitch]

Have you thought about testing your PSU output?

I thought about swapping power supplies, if that's what you mean. I have a handy spare, but I also have a wife, so I can't find it.

The power supply (and the CMOS battery, which tests fine at 3V) is one of the few things I haven't tried. Would a faulty power supply have fired up the thing at all, even briefly, as it did last night?

I have now unseated and reseated the RAM, testing one stick at a time and swapping slots to be sure. No change. Previously, I had taken out all of the PCI cards and unplugged all the cables from onboard adapters. The cards have since been reseated.

[ACTCMS]

I thought about swapping power supplies, if that's what you mean. I have a handy spare, but I also have a wife, so I can't find it...

What? - you mean you don't have an attic full of cob-webs for storing that sort of stuff?

The power supply (and the CMOS battery, which tests fine at 3V) is one of the few things I haven't tried. Would a faulty power supply have fired up the thing at all, even briefly, as it did last night?

PSUs don't always just die, I had one a few months ago which sort of faded away over a week or so, causing a variety of problems before it finally gave up the ghost...

[bgowland]

Would a faulty power supply have fired up the thing at all, even briefly, as it did last night?

Possibly - never underestimate how much of a PITA PSU issues can be. Sorry - that's no real help but border-line PSUs can really cause confusing behaviour in my experience. Find your spare and give it a try.

[ACTCMS]

Snap!