Need help diagnosing problem

[Joebooters]

Recently I have run into a problem with my computer booting up. When I turn the power on it will run all the lights and fans, hard drives, etc, but nothing will actually boot up, it will not post or produce anything on the screen, though it will activate the auto turn-on of my monitor only to have it tell me there is no signal.

It all started while I was playing the MMO Vanguard (system req's for this game are very high so it was running my computer pretty much at 100% at all times). While i was playing the game all of a sudden became very choppy going from 30+ fps to 1 or 2 fps, then totally crashing and at that point I was not able to turn the computer back on, again it will light up and run the fans, hard drives etc.

I believed it was the CPU or motherboard because upon testing the CPU in a friends board it crashed the system and wouldnt boot up again (I had to buy the friend a new mobo). The motherboard would not work with different components either, I also tested the graphics card in another computer without incedent so I'm sure that is not the problem.

I have since purchased a new mobo and CPU and I ran into the same problem, everything lights up and spins up but there is no display in the screen (I do know the monitor works, I have tested that as well). My next inclination is that the power supply is bad but wanted to get some more opinions. Thanks in advance for any help.

specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+ skt939 (old and new)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8N SLI (old) || ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe (new)
Ram: 512mb x2 Kingston HyperX PC3200 ultra-low latency
GFx: MSI 6800GT x2 in SLI
sound: Creative Audigy 2 plat
HD1: 18gb Maxtor SCSI 15krpm (OS) (w/internal PCI SCSI card)
HD2: 80gb WD SATA (games)
HD3: 250gb WD IDE (storage)
power: Antec 480watt Trupower

 

[badge]

Recently I have run into a problem with my computer booting up. When I turn the power on it will run all the lights and fans, hard drives, etc, but nothing will actually boot up, it will not post or produce anything on the screen, though it will activate the auto turn-on of my monitor only to have it tell me there is no signal.

It all started while I was playing the MMO Vanguard (system req's for this game are very high so it was running my computer pretty much at 100% at all times). While i was playing the game all of a sudden became very choppy going from 30+ fps to 1 or 2 fps, then totally crashing and at that point I was not able to turn the computer back on, again it will light up and run the fans, hard drives etc.

I believed it was the CPU or motherboard because upon testing the CPU in a friends board it crashed the system and wouldnt boot up again (I had to buy the friend a new mobo). The motherboard would not work with different components either, I also tested the graphics card in another computer without incedent so I'm sure that is not the problem.

I have since purchased a new mobo and CPU and I ran into the same problem, everything lights up and spins up but there is no display in the screen (I do know the monitor works, I have tested that as well). My next inclination is that the power supply is bad but wanted to get some more opinions. Thanks in advance for any help.

specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+ skt939 (old and new)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8N SLI (old) || ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe (new)
Ram: 512mb x2 Kingston HyperX PC3200 ultra-low latency
GFx: MSI 6800GT x2 in SLI
sound: Creative Audigy 2 plat
HD1: 18gb Maxtor SCSI 15krpm (OS) (w/internal PCI SCSI card)
HD2: 80gb WD SATA (games)
HD3: 250gb WD IDE (storage)
power: Antec 480watt Trupower

Sounds like you have a bad processor. Try your friend's 939 processor in your new 939 board. You may be able to RMA the processor under the AMD warranty.

 

[Joebooters]

I bought a completely new processor, my old one was out of warranty being OEM from newegg.

 

[Joebooters]

Just wanted to give an update:

It was the power supply, everything booted up properly after I installed the new power supply. Also after checking a few wattage calcs I moved up from a 480W supply to a 650W supply. Hopefully I wont have any more problems.

 

[badge]

Glad you found it and have your system up and running.

 

[badge]

Gigabyte GA-K8N SLI (old)

Joe, I'm dropping a 3800 X2 Toledo dual core into a kid's GA-K8N SLI. The Gigabyte website doesn't list the 3800 X2, but lists the 4800 X2 as a compatible processor. I emailed tech support and here is what they emailed back:

since the processor has yet to be tested it has not been confirmed to be able to support it on this board. If it's based upon the same spec as the 4800+ Toledo core it should be ok with this processor with the latest bios

Did you need the latest BIOS to run your 3800 X2 dual core on your GA-K8N-SLI? Did you run into any compatibility problems with you processor/board? Thanks.

 

[Joebooters]

Yes, I did run into some problems when I first put the 3800+ X2 processor into the board, it would not recognize both cores. Make sure you do incremental bios updates, dont skip bios versions, just upgrade to each consecutive version then the next. Once I figured that out I had no problems, it would recognize both cores and I didnt have any issues until the problem with the power supply. Which I now suspect went bad because I overstressed it upgrading to SLI.