New problem... Any ideas? .... :)

[Zelzubub]

Hello again all, having another problem with my GF's machine and was wondering if anyone had a little insight into what what the problem might be.

The problem is her comp will seemingly boot up fine, but the mouse/keyboard have no power and the monitor is recieving no signal. All the lights come on, it doesnt make any funny noises, and stays running but her G15 has no power and the monitor turns on but stays completely black, no signal whatsoever.

When she got home today, she turned it on and left the room to let it boot up like she normally does. When she got back the screensaver was active, and the mouse wouldnt interupt it. She hit the enter key which terminated the screensaver but her desktop was frozen, along with the rest of her comp. She waited several minutes for it to "think" and un-freeze itself, but ended up having to hit the power button (which doesnt just hard boot the system, it tells windows to shut itself down). When she hit the power button it unfroze briefly, gave her an error message and froze solid, at which point she walked away, and had to hit the main power switch on the back of the comp when she got back. When she tried to turn the power back on, it seemingly powered up, except for the peripherals and the monitor signal.


Heres her system specs:

Apevia X-Plorer Mid Tower Case
BFG 650 PSU
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz, Dual-Core, 512k L2 Cache)
OCZ 2GB Dual-Channel DDR2-800 Memory, 2GB G-skill DDR 2
Seagate 320GB - SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive
XFX 8800GT, Zotac 8800GT in SLI
7.1 Channel High-Defination Audio
10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Network Adapter
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition w/Service Pack 2


Its a prebuilt Anitec machine, with upgraded video cards, PSU, and an additional 2 gb of ram. It needed to be reformatted and wasnt running tip top before the problem occured.

If anyone has any ideas as to what might be the problem, or any ways to diagnose the problem, we'd be very grateful :help:

[Perineum]

First thing I would do is test it with the latest cd/dvd version of Knoppix. If that runs fine then you're likely just looking at software/OS issues. Also, see if it'll pass one run of Memtest86. If it does seem to run fine with Knoppix you could still have a bad stick of RAM that slowly corrupts your installs and thereby causing your problems. I've found that a quick pass of Memtest86 can save you hours of repairing only to have it die on you again and *then* finally find out it's your RAM.

That's where I would start....

[Zelzubub]

Forgive my newbness, are you suggesting I burn a copy of Knoppix and try booting with in it the cd drive? The monitors recieving no signal, and the mouse and keyboard wont power up so downloading any new programs and trying them isnt possible at this point.

I read a reply in another thread with a similar problem a suggestion by Sswilson:

"Did you try a "long" CMOS reset with the PSU turned off (or disconnected)?

If not, turn off the PSU, press the start button to drain the capacitors, take your battery out, set the cmos jumpers to reset and leave them there for 5 - 10 minutes. "

I havent tried a "long" cmos reset, is this something that might be a solution to my problem?

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Zelzubub

Forgive my newbness, are you suggesting I burn a copy of Knoppix and try booting with in it the cd drive? The monitors recieving no signal, and the mouse and keyboard wont power up so downloading any new programs and trying them isnt possible at this point.

I read a reply in another thread with a similar problem a suggestion by Sswilson:

"Did you try a "long" CMOS reset with the PSU turned off (or disconnected)?

If not, turn off the PSU, press the start button to drain the capacitors, take your battery out, set the cmos jumpers to reset and leave them there for 5 - 10 minutes. "

I havent tried a "long" cmos reset, is this something that might be a solution to my problem?

Can you see the POST screen when you turn it on? Or is it completely blank?

If you have more than 2 sticks of memory remove one and see what happens and repeat with the other.

[KaptCrunch]

current bios for this MB is 1701 as of 2009/03/02

[Zelzubub]

Its completely blank, no signal. Going to try with various sticks of ram.

[Arinoth]

Originally Posted by Zelzubub

Forgive my newbness, are you suggesting I burn a copy of Knoppix and try booting with in it the cd drive? The monitors recieving no signal, and the mouse and keyboard wont power up so downloading any new programs and trying them isnt possible at this point.

What the poster you're replying to is trying to say. With your working computer download the software, or really any gui distro of Linux. Burn it to a cd and boot the computer from said cd. If everything works (you get screen and pheriphal controls) then its a corrupt windows. If it doesn't work then you should try Memtest86. Though i personally suspect its a motherboard issue since it connects everything together and with that, could actually be a south bridge issue since thats where your pci-e/pci and pheripheral slots all come together.

[stoanee]

I am suspicious of your video cards and/or ram. Can you take out SLI and try them individually? Here is a troubleshooting flowchart that may help you, it is a bit dated though.

poster.pdf

[Zelzubub]

Well, I tried the different kits by themselves, same result. Then I tried each of the 4 1 GB sticks by themselves, no change. So I put all 4 back in their orignal slots... and it booted up normally. I have to run out to work so dont have time to memtest so gonna leave that till I get home. Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone.

[Zelzubub]

Originally Posted by Arinoth

What the poster you're replying to is trying to say. With your working computer download the software, or really any gui distro of Linux. Burn it to a cd and boot the computer from said cd. If everything works (you get screen and pheriphal controls) then its a corrupt windows. If it doesn't work then you should try Memtest86. Though i personally suspect its a motherboard issue since it connects everything together and with that, could actually be a south bridge issue since thats where your pci-e/pci and pheripheral slots all come together.

I had feeling this is what Perineum was trying to tell me, thanks for clarifying Arinoth.