The Dreaded Black Screen

i did a search and somone said to clear the bios or remove the battery... now my power switch dosnt work. any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

well its turning on again which is a good sign
but the computer still wont post

You did put the battery back, right?

If you recently moved computer around there is a chance that some contact came lose.

But first things first.

1. Detach all cables and open the case
2. Carefully dust everything
3. Remove all PCI/AGP cards, RAM, and CPU
4. Clean CPU and heatsink surface with rubbing alcohol
5. Clean RAM and PCI/AGP card contacts by carefully rubbing them with regular eraser
6. Inspect the mainboard for blown or leaky capacitors, if you find any, don't bother looking any further, perhaps it can be repaired but most likely not
7. If so far all is well take out the power supply, open it and dust it carefully like you did with the computer
8. Inspect power supply for blown or leaky capacitors. If you find any get a new one.
8. Put everything back together, apply new thermal grease and don't forget to attach fan wire.

Hope that helps and remember -- you are doing it at your own risk!

Couldn't opening the power supply and dusting it possibly cause death?

.

When you say your power switch doesnt work, are you referring to the one on the power supply? Coz unless you have a CMOS reset button on the motherboard (which few, unfortunately, have), you should be using a jumper instead. Why do we still have to use jumpers when technology everywhere else in the computer has improved so much? They could at least increase the use of reset buttons instead. Or even put a button on the back panel of the motherboard, small so you wont hit it by accident. Much more convinient than opening up your case every time your OC fails  

EDIT: Btw, if you think black screens are dreaded, you should try blue screens. Much scarier!

Only if you have it plugged in and touch it with your tongue. :wink:

But you still want to stay away from touching those capacitors. Some might still have stored up energy, which will take the path of less resistance - a finger for example.

If you do open the PSU, use some compressed air, and a plastic/non-conductive vacuum attachment, if needed.

Oh, and don't plug it in or touch it with your tongue, either.  

To make that work better, you could attach a grounding conductor to your aorta, or occipital lobe. Without one of those, survival is likely.

And we wouldnt want the OP to survive now, would we?

As suggested, a good cleaning, and capacitor check is the way to go.
I would then do a complete dismantle, and try a basic boot config.
A basic boot config includes mobo, chip and hsf, one stick of ram, power supply and a speaker. If this gets you a beep from the speaker, good, add the gfx card to see if can get a screan. Then add items one at a time.
BTW if you only checked onr rail of the psu, it doesn't do. You have to check bothe 12v rails (if you have 2), the 3.3 and the 5 v rails as well.

When I have a problematic build, I have an extension for my jumper for the CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) and another for my restart button... (I am now using a DFI so I just have an extension to my MB's reset button...) Once I have the build bedded in, yank off... replace jumpers, wires whatever, and all is good. Too many MB's bury these two jumpers behind the vid cards, HD cables, etc.

Only if you have it plugged in and touch it with your tongue. :wink:
.......my mother would never tell me the meaning of that scar. Every time we passed a computer store, however, my father would haul me into the PSU section and keep muttering under his breath "300 watts 300 watts..."

thank you for all your replies. ive tried a number of those things on my comp so far, like the cleaning, trying to boot with nothing but cpu ram and video and even trying to boot up without a cpu . i get the exact thing everytime. i cleared the cmos by removing the battery and that did nothing as well. haha if i could just get an error code or something i would consider it an improvement. i have yet to uninstall the video card as of now... actually ill do it right now...

well i tried that, i cleaned all the hardware and tried turning it on again with only the cpu 1 stick of ram and my video card, and nothing else plugged in. still nothing. all that happens is the keyboard lights flash and thats it the motherboard dosnt post or anything... when looking for a bad transistor what exactly should i be looking for
aahh it pains me to think of about 24 hours ago when i was able to use my computer 8O

I had same prob a few months ago. I thought I had broken my mobo but it was because the fan wasn't tighty fitted in... I dunno, thats all I can think of.

well i finally went to sleep last night and tried to turn it on again, hoping some kind of voodoo took place while i was asleep. but nothing i have gotten to the point where i believe its either a motherboard issue, a psu issue or a blown bios chip. if anybody has some insight id greatly appreciate it

If all three flash only once at the same time then the CPU is posting and the BIOS is most likely Ok.

1. Try without VGA card, you should hear beeps, if you do, then try with another known working video card or try your VGA card in another computer.

2. If there are no beeps try with another RAM stick. Also try them in another slot.

3. If that doesn't work, replace power supply

4. If it still doesn't work then you will have to replace the mainboard as well

5. If it still doesn't work, then you really have a bad luck.



It is bad capacitors and in my previous post you have a link to a page with pictures of some bad motherf... well you get the point.

Lol, I watched Back to the Future last week.

It's bad capacitors you should be looking for.
The capacitors are those cylinders around the chip socket.
What you are looking for is ones that are not flat on top (bulged) or are leaking.

Or melted or broken off or glowing or stuck in your fan blades.