What's broken in my PC? (I suspect my motherboard, maybe my CPU)

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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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So, I built a PC and it's been running fine for a year or two now. I was browsing a forum, and one person there said you can stop some game stuttering by setting virtual memory minimum to 7000 mb, and the max also. I thought, hey, if that's good, a bunch must be great! So I set the min virtual memory to 8192 mb, and also of course the max. My PC did not like this. It got caught in a loop of rebooting, so I put in the OS disk and repaired the install. This worked for a day and it got caught rebooting a bunch again. This time, I put in the disk and said, don't reboot when I get a system error. I continued to windows and everything crashed and will not reboot (all fans spin, but no display). Since then, I've tried moving everything to a spare motherboard I had lying around, and also tried booting with one other PSU. The motherboard I moved everything to has a green LED on it, and it turned on when I booted, but I sill got no display. Did I kill my motherboard? Did I fry my RAM, my CPU? Any help would be great, as I would rather save a trip to the computer store to have my hardware tested. All in all, I've ruled out my Graphics card, monitor, and I think my PSU. The reason I don't say motherboard, is that I've had trouble with the extra one before, and this is nothing new to it.
PS: everything is plugged in correctly.

Specs:
CPU: FX-6200
Motherboard: A880GZ, and the M5A78L-M LX PLUS
PSU: 620W roswill Green, and I think the other one is 750w, but not sure. (I don't own it)
GPU: Gigabyte 7950 3gb
RAM: Corsair vengeance 8gb 1600mhz
CPU Heatsink: Hyper 212
HDD: 1tb 7200 rpm, blah blah blah

Thanks for everyone's help
 
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DeadRam

DeadRam

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Jun 14, 2007
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Changing virtual memory settings won't cause these problems but changing hardware exposes it to static electricity. You may have done more damage during your troubleshooting steps. I would re-install the CPU in the original motherboard. Connect the PS and boot it without memory, HD, optical drive and videocard. Do you get beeps (you should)? Install memory, etc one at a time.
 
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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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I already re-installed everything into the original motherboard, and I made sure to ground myself every minute or so. What will booting it with all these things do? Thanks for your time. :)
 
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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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Forgot to mention that I've reset the BIOS a few times now, I will try again and check back.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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Run Ubuntu linux directly from a DVD.

If it causes rebooting you have a hardware issue. If it works fine then your original Windows problem was likely:
1) Hard Drive, or
2) Motherboard issue related to hard drive, or
3) Software

So if Ubuntu works I advise reinstalling Windows from scratch. Get the main chipset and other drivers from the motherboard support site etc.
 
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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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I wish I could install an OS, but when I tried that with my System builder Windows 8, the drive just opened and closed and it didn't read the disk when I ninja'd it in. In case I forgot to mention this, I get no bios flash, my display is completely dead the whole time.
 
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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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Yes, I did that as well, I've had problems with the extra board before, so I wasn't surprised. I guess l'll bring it in to a store and have them individually test the hardware. :/
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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If your spare board is toast, why have you not switched back to the first board?

If you think BOTH boards have issues then buy another one from Newegg. If you take it to a shop they'll charge you to look at it, then tell you to buy another one.

Keep in mind that you need to also confirm it's not your Power Supply. You say you ruled it out but I'm not sure how if both motherboards are unstable.

Don't forget to look into the WARRANTY for those motherboards as well. You might be able to just RMA one or both.
 
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billybob42

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Oct 19, 2012
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Thanks for all y'alls help. So, I had the opportunity to test out my hardware on another motherboard and it booted. What do you think is a good motherboard replacement? The motherboard I have is out of warranty. The one I was considering was the M5a99FX PRO.
It seems like a decent upgrade from the already lame motherboard I have now...
 
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