Need help determining the cause of failure.

zylaxice · 07-17-2006, 06:00 PM

Hello all. My first post here, as I've not had a problem that stumped me so before.

My fast aging unprotected self-built computer was recently hit by a power surge, and something went wrong. Absolutely nothing showed up on the monitor, I couldn't get to the BIOS or a splash screen or anything. My first thought was the monitor, which I hooked up to another tower, and it is fine. My next thought was the HDD. I hooked that up to another computer, and it was indeed corrupted. I removed it and bought a brand new Seagate 120G drive. However, even with this new drive, I still can't get anything at all to show up on the monitor. When I hook up the monitor to my Radeon 9800 Pro (via VGA or DVI + adapter), it shows a green "on" light for a second, then goes back to the no signal/standby orange light. When I hook it up to the mobo directly, I get only the orange, no flash of green at all. My question is, how can I further test to find out exactly what's dead? I just want to isolate the problem so I can replace that specific part. Can anyone suggest any common problems or other tests I could do? I don't have any other computers wth AGP slots to test the graphics card, and I know my IDE cables are working properly. Also, even though I cannot see anything, the fan on the graphics card spins up, as does the fan on the CPU.

Celeron D @ 2.8Ghz
9800 Pro 128 AGP
1.5G PC3200 DDR400
120G HDD, IDE 7200RPM
DFL 661GX-MLV Motherboard

Thank you in advance for any help, and I can provide more information if you need anything I forgot.

**hwm54112** · 07-17-2006, 06:15 PM

Hello zylaxice and Welcome to TSF,

See troubleshooting with a multimeter for starters. It's an excellent sticky by a staff member here at TSF. Should quickly eliminate a few things for you.

Bill

Tumbleweed36 · 07-17-2006, 06:16 PM

Hi,

You may have fried something, but first things first. Clear the CMOS by taking the battery our for a few minutes and see if it resets the Bios setup menu. Let us know what happens.

zylaxice · 07-17-2006, 07:24 PM

Thank you both for such a quick response. Unfortunately, I neither own nor know anyone who owns a multimeter. As a very casual and infrequent electronic hobbyist, it's not an investment that seemed worth it to me. Maybe my mind will change as I progress further into this world.

I removed the battery for a few minutes, but it did not change my situation at all. I heard from another source that because my internal speaker is no longer functioning at all, including error messages such as when I removed the RAM, my motherboard is damaged beyond a doubt. Is there any truth in this?

Thank you for your continued patience with me in this matter.
Zylaxice

**linderman** · 07-17-2006, 07:29 PM

unless you removed your ram while the computer was booted; thats hog hash

error speakers have no impact on the system other than to aid the user in diagnostics

**hwm54112** · 07-17-2006, 09:28 PM

Multimeters-I have an $ 80.00 Greenlee, a $30.00 Sperry and an $8.00 Cen-Tech. I don't do anything mission critical but everyone reads exactly the same. The Cen-tech actually has more features than the Greenlee, but the Greenlee is one hardy beast (built for construction). Check out harborfreight.com. You can pick up something usable for a few bucks if you live in the states. If you follow the sticky, you can determine if the cpu is bad, mobo, psu, switch, power good, etc.

07-17-2006, 06:00 PM	#1 (permalink)
zylaxice Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 5 OS: XP Home	Need help determining the cause of failure. Hello all. My first post here, as I've not had a problem that stumped me so before. My fast aging unprotected self-built computer was recently hit by a power surge, and something went wrong. Absolutely nothing showed up on the monitor, I couldn't get to the BIOS or a splash screen or anything. My first thought was the monitor, which I hooked up to another tower, and it is fine. My next thought was the HDD. I hooked that up to another computer, and it was indeed corrupted. I removed it and bought a brand new Seagate 120G drive. However, even with this new drive, I still can't get anything at all to show up on the monitor. When I hook up the monitor to my Radeon 9800 Pro (via VGA or DVI + adapter), it shows a green "on" light for a second, then goes back to the no signal/standby orange light. When I hook it up to the mobo directly, I get only the orange, no flash of green at all. My question is, how can I further test to find out exactly what's dead? I just want to isolate the problem so I can replace that specific part. Can anyone suggest any common problems or other tests I could do? I don't have any other computers wth AGP slots to test the graphics card, and I know my IDE cables are working properly. Also, even though I cannot see anything, the fan on the graphics card spins up, as does the fan on the CPU. Celeron D @ 2.8Ghz 9800 Pro 128 AGP 1.5G PC3200 DDR400 120G HDD, IDE 7200RPM DFL 661GX-MLV Motherboard Thank you in advance for any help, and I can provide more information if you need anything I forgot.

07-17-2006, 06:16 PM	#3 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,647 OS: XP Professional	Hi, You may have fried something, but first things first. Clear the CMOS by taking the battery our for a few minutes and see if it resets the Bios setup menu. Let us know what happens. __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread.

07-17-2006, 07:29 PM	#5 (permalink)
linderman Moderator, Hardware Team Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 20,437 OS: win 2000 pro / Win XP pro My System	unless you removed your ram while the computer was booted; thats hog hash error speakers have no impact on the system other than to aid the user in diagnostics __________________ I still know nothing and I respect that fact, striving to improve and, along the way, help anyone that comes from the place that I used to be! Power Supply Selection LEARN TO BACK-UP YOUR DATA FREE & EASY YouTube - Runtime Software DriveImage XML tutorial

07-17-2006, 06:15 PM	#2 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	Hello zylaxice and Welcome to TSF, See troubleshooting with a multimeter for starters. It's an excellent sticky by a staff member here at TSF. Should quickly eliminate a few things for you. Bill

07-17-2006, 07:24 PM	#4 (permalink)
zylaxice Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 5 OS: XP Home	Thank you both for such a quick response. Unfortunately, I neither own nor know anyone who owns a multimeter. As a very casual and infrequent electronic hobbyist, it's not an investment that seemed worth it to me. Maybe my mind will change as I progress further into this world. I removed the battery for a few minutes, but it did not change my situation at all. I heard from another source that because my internal speaker is no longer functioning at all, including error messages such as when I removed the RAM, my motherboard is damaged beyond a doubt. Is there any truth in this? Thank you for your continued patience with me in this matter. Zylaxice

07-17-2006, 09:28 PM	#6 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	Multimeters-I have an $ 80.00 Greenlee, a $30.00 Sperry and an $8.00 Cen-Tech. I don't do anything mission critical but everyone reads exactly the same. The Cen-tech actually has more features than the Greenlee, but the Greenlee is one hardy beast (built for construction). Check out harborfreight.com. You can pick up something usable for a few bucks if you live in the states. If you follow the sticky, you can determine if the cpu is bad, mobo, psu, switch, power good, etc.