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Help! My desktop died!

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  • Desktops
  • Games
  • Systems
Last response: in Systems
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February 19, 2014 6:28:04 AM

So, My wife was playing a game on the desktop and for some reason it randomly shut off no warning or anything. When I went to turn it back on, everything powered up but the monitor it is hooked up to says "NO SIGNAL". I tried to power it down to reset it and it wouldnt manually shut off after holding the button down for 10 secs. I had to unplug it.
So in a nut shell,
Computer randomly shut down
Turned it back on powered up fine
NO SIGNAL to monitor
Wont manually shut down by holding button for 10 secs, has to be unplugged.

I tried taking the video card out and hooking up through the on board video. It still reads No Signal.

Please help! Any advice is much appreciated thank you very much.

More about : desktop died

February 19, 2014 6:32:32 AM

First tell us a bit more about your computer. What OS dos it have,Mother board and processor is there? do you hear any beeps when you try to boot up? Does the power supply fan or any fan come on? What lights are on one the case? Did you shut off the power supply using its power button in the back? Do you get a bios screen before it says no signal to monitor or does that happen right away?
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February 19, 2014 7:01:51 AM

Yes sorry, I dont even get a bios screen nothing shows at all. Just a floating "NO SIGNAL"
As for the hardware:
Power Supply: 800W
Hard Drive: 500 GB wester digital hooked up with sata
The mother board: Biostar A880GZ (Am3, Pci express 2.0, Dual channel DDR3)
Processor: Fx AMD Quadcore processor socket am3
Video Card: MSi Ti Cyclone N550GTX
Ram: 2 sticks of 4GB DDR3-1333 (PC3 10600)
Standard CD/DVD drive
all fans are running and as soon as I turn it on its followed by 2 quick beeps
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February 19, 2014 7:10:21 AM

Ok sounds like your motherboard isn't wanting to post. First thing I would try is to flip off the power switch on the back of the power supply and leave it off for about 15 to 20 minutes for the capacitors to fully discharge. Then try powering back on normally. If that doesn't work disconnect the power supply from power and the motherboard and take out the CMos Battery. leave out for 30 to 40 seconds reinstall the battery. Listen to see if you can hear it trying to read from and access the hard drive. Report what happens.
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February 19, 2014 7:22:12 AM

Its been completely disconnected for a week now, I tried the second option with taking out the battery for 30 to 40 seconds.
I put the battery back in plugged the power supply cables back into the 24 pin and the 4 pin in the top left corner, turned it back on and got the same 2 quick beeps, I can hear the Hard drive running, Normal sounds really.
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February 19, 2014 7:43:19 AM

Theres no light on the motherboard, or none that I can see at least and I looked everywhere in it.
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February 19, 2014 7:54:27 AM

When you tried with your on-board graphics did you have your graphics card in the pcie slot or no?

Next step is disconnect power entirely- ground yourself remove graphics card plug into on-board video.
Plug in power try booting. When you say all fans are running does that include your graphics card fan and cpu fan or just the case and power supply fans.
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February 19, 2014 8:03:29 AM

Thats all the fans Cpu, case, power supply, video card, all are running.
Just took out the video card and tried on board... same results, 2 beeps as soon as it starts and still "NO SIGNAL" and still cant shut it off manually gotta unplug it
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February 19, 2014 8:08:15 AM

There isn't a switch on the back of the power-supply ?
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February 19, 2014 8:11:53 AM

Not on this one (Weird right!?!) I JUST bought it. I wanted to see if it was power supply related. It did this with the last one in it too..
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February 19, 2014 8:43:25 AM

Just curious, are you running Windows? Have you tried booting with a rescue disk? Also, you are not even getting the motherboard BIOS screen, it goes straight to black screen correct? But fans are spinning and HDD is working as if the computer is booting, there is just no video output?

Could it be as simple as the monitor cable has gone bad? I have a cat that likes to chew on cables.
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February 19, 2014 8:47:05 AM

Yup just goes to black screen, Im running windows but how could I boot with the rescue disk if I cant even get the bios to appear. Its a brand new hdmi cable too. The HDD is running Im not sure if theres something I should be looking for or not but it seems to be ok its spinning away. Could my mother board be bad?
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February 19, 2014 9:20:35 AM

I wish I knew which part to replace, oy lol!
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February 19, 2014 10:23:09 AM

I have had black screens prior to BIOS before. In one case it was the PSU, but in that case there was no HDD activity or beeps, just fans spinning. I would still consider PSU to be a possibility. Another time it was faulty RAM, but again I don't think there was any HDD activity. I can't think of any way to diagnose for certain at this point, just trial and error, one part at a time. I might start with PSU but that would just be a hunch. What is the brand and age of the PSU?
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February 19, 2014 11:11:08 AM

Since you have replaced your PSU, and we are pretty sure its not your graphics card. (Removing your graphics card and connecting directly into the onboard should have bypassed that. There is a small chance your bios didn't reset to defaults when you removed power and your battery but its very unlikely). I'd rule out your monitor, there are a couple of possible ways to do that. First, you plug the monitor into what ever you are posting on right now (my guess is a laptop) second you plug a different screen into your computer, (you mostly likely have an hd tv and since you have hdmi out-put on your video card simply plug that into your hd tv. ) Monitor works plugged into the other system you are most likely having motherboard issues, but you'd have to check components one by one using a friends or another computer, monitor doesn't work plugged into another computer you most likely have a bad cord/connection, or its not processing received signals properly.
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Best solution

February 19, 2014 11:11:08 AM

Since you have replaced your PSU, and we are pretty sure its not your graphics card. (Removing your graphics card and connecting directly into the onboard should have bypassed that. There is a small chance your bios didn't reset to defaults when you removed power and your battery but its very unlikely). I'd rule out your monitor, there are a couple of possible ways to do that. First, you plug the monitor into what ever you are posting on right now (my guess is a laptop) second you plug a different screen into your computer, (you mostly likely have an hd tv and since you have hdmi out-put on your video card simply plug that into your hd tv. ) Monitor works plugged into the other system you are most likely having motherboard issues, but you'd have to check components one by one using a friends or another computer, monitor doesn't work plugged into another computer you most likely have a bad cord/connection, or its not processing received signals properly.
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February 19, 2014 1:00:06 PM

I guess Ill start with a mother board then go from there. Thanks for all the help I really appreciate it, ill post updates as to whats going on incase anyone else goes through this XD
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February 19, 2014 1:00:22 PM

Again, thank you soo soo much
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February 19, 2014 1:11:34 PM

Hmmm, why would you do that? MB is the least likely to go bad and most expensive to replace. I would tend to go PSU, RAM, MB, CPU. Again, what is the brand and age of the PSU? Especially if you have an off brand I would be most suspicious of the PSU at this point.
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February 19, 2014 11:18:28 PM

Aristotelian he just replaced the PSU in his above statement.
He has tried both PSU.
I'd actually pull a stick of ram and try to boot, then swap the stick.
This simply so that you can individually try each stick of ram in case one of them is bad.
I'm suggesting it simply because its fast easy and free and could possibly be the issue.

Also aristotelian, his motherboard is known for having issues over heating the mosfets and killing the motherboard.
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February 20, 2014 5:54:05 AM

Oops, I see that now where he tried PSU. If PSU is already ruled out, then yes, try to rule out RAM and then next step would be MB since you have eliminated everything else.
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