No video on Identical Motherboard

sirstinky · Mar 20, 2013

Hey all.

I had the pci-e slot go bad on my Dell Inspiron 531s motherboard (I think it's the Y206) after it got wet. It works with the onboard vga, but I need dual monitors, so I need the pci-express for a graphics card.

I didn't want to hassle with a clean install of Windows so I found the same model motherboard, I installed it, and it powers on, but there's no video, no beeps, and no POST. I tried reseating the cpu, the RAM. I took out the memory and it does beep. All the original parts work fine and there are no other issues.

It's an Inspiron 531s, AMD Sempron, 4GB pc2-6400 RAM, Windows 7 pro. Motherboard is a Y206 (I think).

Any help? I'm pretty good with pc's but this is baffling. It should work if everything is the same, right?

Thanks!

danny2000 · Mar 20, 2013

Did you try clearing your cmos?

Also, if that doesn't work to resolve it,
Try only booting up with one stick of ram at a time.

sirstinky · Mar 21, 2013

danny2000 :

Thanks for the speedy reply! I tried it with one stick of RAM in two of the slots (there are 4 slots) with no luck. I will try and clear the CMOS tomorrow and see if that helps. I hope that's what it is, as I don't really want to buy another motherboard or hassle with an exchange if I don't have to. I have an inkling that it might not as this is probably a bigger issue, but worth a try.

For the record, all of the parts were working fine before I swapped the motherboards. They are the same brand (Dell), model, and have the same BIOS firmware (to my knowledge) so all the drivers should be the same. I can't even see if I get BSOD as there's no video anyway. Even then, it's not getting past POST as there are no beeps (the speaker does work as I tried taking all the RAM out and booting, and I do get the beep code). I tried booting with no hard drive too, and that doesn't work. The motherboard itself looks great. It's a refurbished unit so I am not thinking it's the issue...

Thanks again!

danny2000 · Mar 22, 2013

Just try it with only one stick, not two. it will still work, to rule out any bad ram chips.

I'm not really certain, but did you say that the video works and it boots up with the onboard-video but does not boot-up or display anything when using the PCI card slot?

sirstinky · Mar 23, 2013

danny2000 :

On the old motherboard, yes. The pci slot just stopped working when it was working fine the day before water spilled all over the PC. The video card was fried, it was obvious, but the slot didn't work either. We tried a new video card and that didn't solve the problem, which is why we got a replacement motherboard, which now doesn't work at all. I didn't get a chance to work on it today as it's at my work and I am busy during the day, but I will get back at it on Monday and try clearing the cmos and testing the RAM, but like I said, the RAM worked fine before, all 4 GB showed up just fine in windows.

sirstinky · Mar 26, 2013

Well as an update, today I tried one last time to get the whole mess to work. I cleared the CMOS, not once, but three times, cord off, battery out 5 minutes. Put the batt back in, powered on, and the CPU fan spun up fast for about 3 seconds, then I got 4 beeps in short succession then nothing else. No video, no POST, no beeps.

I tried the RAM with 2 different DIMM's in each slot and that didn't work. The four beeps are usually a sign that the system time has changed, so unless it's something else, then it's not unremarkable to me. It does beep with no RAM installed, so nothing out of the ordinary there.

I did a bare boot with one RAM stick, nothing else attached, no keyboard, mouse, hard drives, and it does the same thing. No video, nothing. The old motherboard works perfectly with the exception of a burned PCI-e slot, which is the reason I'm replacing the board.

So I'm at a loss here. I'm thinking they sent me a faulty motherboard. It is a refurb (can't really buy these Y206's new), but of course they say they test it before it leaves their end.

So before I do an RMA, does anyone else have any suggestions for me? Anything else I can try? I have swapped out plenty of boards, and usually boards that behave like this have some sort of hardware failure, but the RAM is good, CPU is good, PS is good, HDD is good, so it has to be the board.

I don't want to buy a new board for this as it's a socket AM2 with an AMD AM2 CPU, and they don't make those anymore. Plus, i don't want to do a migration, but would if I had to, as I really need 2 monitors as one monitor is hurting my worker's productivity. :kaola:

Thanks!

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