Computer won't boot, doesn't do anythin

[notaguru]

Hi there. Please help. My husband built this computer a couple months ago and it has worked flawlessly until now. It was shut down last night after an evening of normal use. No new software or hardware has been installed in over a month. We didn't do anything new or out of the ordinary. When we went to turn it on this morning all of the computer fans started like normal, but we could hear that the hard drive did not fire up and there was no signal to the monitor. Computer will not reset when using the reset button on the front, nor will it shut off when using the off button either. We have to flip the main power switch on the power supply to turn it off. We also can't open/eject CD-DVD/RW combo drive. Any ideas why this isn't starting up or basically doing anything other than running the fans? Motherboard is MSI MS-6728 865PE NEO2-PLS, running (or at least we WERE) XP, CPU is P4 3.2GH. Here is what we've tried: swapped power leads coming off fans that are working to the hard drive/cd drive with no result. Very puzzled - please help. He is at home freaking out, and I am at work and able to check this forum from my desk. Thanks much!!!!!

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

first question.....is it giving any beeps when you turn it on?

well, there are several things you can try.

1) reset the cmos...there should be a jumper beside the cmos battery...usually the jumper stays on pins 1@2..so move it over to 2@3 for a few seconds...then move it bacl..that will reset the cmos and maybe allow it to boot....if it does boot you have ot go back thru the bios and set everything back to where it goes (sort of a chore sometimes)

2) "reseat" the ram...."reseat" the video card.

reseat just basically means "take it out and put it back in good"....soemtimes parts can move around a little bit in their slot etc..especially video cards...so I would reseat the ram and the video card first.

if that doesnt work you need to strip it down some and see what happens...in other words...unhook the ide cables (the wide ones from the cdrom and hard drive) so that the board has no ide cables attached....unhook the floppy cable....unplug the power hookups from the hard drive, cdrom, floppy...take out all pci cards...

then try to boot....you should only have the following hooked up....cpu/heatsink, one stick of ram, vid card...thats it....even without a hard drive it should at least boot and turn the monitor on.

if it does boot then start adding components back on and see when it quits booting....for instance if its fine until you add the modem, then the modem is bad.


JP

got any spare computers at home with spare parts?? if so you might want to try swapping out the power supply

and to test the power supply you can unplug all the power supply leads from the motherboard and cdroms/hard drives etc....take a paper clip and bend it into a "u"..stick one end of the paper clip into the large connector that goes into the motherboard...into any black wire hole..and stick the other end into the green wire hole....that will kick the power supply on....best to have, say, a fan and a hard drive hooked up to give the supply some "load"...also you could see if the hard drive spins

[notaguru]

Hi John. First off, thanks for your detailed help. That is awesome.

Here is what we did and the results. (we have no beeps either)
1) Moved the jumper from JBAT1 from 1/2 to 2/3 and moved it back. Still nothing.
2) Reseated both RAM sticks and the video. Still nothing
3) Unplugged everything. It gives power to the monitor as it flashes "No signal" but still nothing from computer.
4) The paperclip trick fired the power supply. But, when we plug the hard drive in, it doesn't spin up.

Any more ideas? Is our hard drive fried? We unfortunately have a lot of unbacked up stuff on there.

[John Prophet]

well, the "no signal" thing just shows that it is NOT getting a signal from the comp...that is a built in message from the monitor itself....

not sure about the hard drive...I was just guessing that they spin up when powered, but maybe they dont if not hooked to a motherboard etc.

but the point is..the motherboard should fire up and give video WITHOUT a hard drive.

got any spare parts or another comp?

[notaguru]

YAHOO - He just called and said he got it working. He thinks that resetting the cmos is what did it. After I typed that last reply he figured out he put the jumper back on wrong on 1 to nothing. When he put it back to 1@2 it booted. You are wonderful! Thanks so much.

Now, one more question - what is the cmos, how did it get screwed up that resetting it worked? (I'm a Mac user so I don't know much about PC's, but I like to learn.....)

Thanks again! The wonderful world of the internet and those who are willing to share what they know!

[John Prophet]

the CMOS is just an area of the motherboard...also called the bios....actually the "cmos" is the chip that stores the bios...

the bios is the "basic input output services" of the motherboard....it is those black and white screens you see before windows kicks in.

the bios holds the basic settings such as the cpu speed settings, the hard drive/cdrom settings, the boot order, etc etc

you can sometimes get away with just setting it on 'default" settings....but usually you need to do a little tweaking to get it right.

sometimes the 'default" settings are sort of 'minimal'..such as running the cpu at a slower speed etc

did you get a motherboard manual?

if not you might should go to the msi website and try to find it...with luck you can donload it onto the computer and look at it...then go into the bios and compare etc....

as long as you can get online with the comp then you can find answers etc.

---

no idea how the cmos could have gotten corrupter unless the battery died or soemthing...usually they last like 5-7 years but who knows...if the battery is dead youll know..itll mess up again plus the clock will probably run slow.

otherwise maybe it was just a freak incident or soem sort of power surge.


there r probably a million bios guides online..such as http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=1
oops, that one requires signing up for that forum

try this one http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/pcinfo...sg/bios_sg.htm

JP