Need help, System won't POST

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:36 pm

Hi all,

I could use some help diagnosing a problem with my pc. You could say it's a little bit too silent these days.

I'd been having some problems booting lately, where it would start to POST, but shutdown and restart again before finishing. It would do this a few times, and eventually POST successfully. I wouldn't see anything on the display.

I opened the case to try to experiment and find out what is causing this, but now it won't POST at all. All I did was reset the CMOS and remove my graphics card. I never see anything on the display.

Here's what I have, with the mobo out of the case.

Bare mobo, no CPU, RAM: No BIOS beeps at all
CPU, no RAM: Continuous long beeps
CPU and RAM: No beeps at all.
RAM, no CPU: No beeps at all.

According to the manual, continuous long beeps means "graphics card not inserted properly."

CPU is an Intel E6320
Mobo is Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
RAM is 2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix DD2-1066
PSU is Seasonic S12-330

Thanks for the help everyone, I could really use it.

xan_user · Post by **xan_user** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:25 pm

any usb ports fail recently?

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:57 pm

Not that I know of. Why?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:43 pm

Hi,

Can you test the power supply by shorting the green wire to a black wire on the ATX plug? What happens with the video card? Do you have a PCI video card to try, and/or other RAM to try?

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:55 pm

Hi Neil,

I'm pretty sure the PSU is working, as it's fan turns on, and so does my CPU fan, even when I don't get POST beeps. I have since unplugged the CPU fan, though, just in case. Right now I'm starting it by shorting the power switch header on the board.

I've been testing with the onboard video. I'll try plugging the graphics card back in, and report if anything changes. Unfortunately I don't have any extra components that would work with this board, so I can't swap any parts.

Thanks!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:49 am

Hi,

Try the RAM one stick at a time. If one is NG, this will let you know.

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 12:51 pm

Hi Neil,

I tried this, inserting one stick at a time into each of the 4 slots, and nothing changed. I'm starting to think my motherboard has kicked the bucket?

Thanks!

hybrid2d4x4 · Post by **hybrid2d4x4** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:54 pm

^ That seems to be the most likely scenario. It sounds like you know what you're doing so sorry if these questions seem redundant/obvious, but do you have anything else hooked up to the motherboard (PCI cards, peripherals on the rear panel, HDD, etc.)? Did you reset the CMOS after pulling out the vid card or before (in your post it sounds like before, even though, normally, this shouldn't matter)? Also, did you reset CMOS with jumper or the 'ol battery removal? If you haven't tried this already, lose everything connected to the mobo except cpu, ram and PSU, connect monitor to onboard, reset CMOS by battery w/o power to the mobo, and give it one last try. By trying one stick at a time in different slots, you can pretty much rule out the ram, which leaves the mobo and cpu, and statistically speaking, mobos fail a lot more often then cpus.

disphenoidal · Post by **disphenoidal** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:42 pm

I have my keyboard plugged into the p/s 2 port, and my mouse connected to the USB. I had a graphics card plugged into the pci-e slot, removed it and tried to use the onboard video, but it didn't change anything. Right now the graphics card is removed and the onboard video is connected to the monitor.

I can't remember if I removed the video card before or after resetting the CMOS, but I think I reset the CMOS first, then removed the video. Not sure though. I reset it using the jumpers.

I tried resetting it again as you described, using the battery, but still no luck. So it does sound a lot like the mobo is gone. The only thing that makes me uncertain is that my RAM is a matched pair, so maybe both sticks failed at the same time?

Thanks!