PC was damaged in shipping, trying to troubleshoot failing part

[serrith]

Ok here is the story. I built a system a year ago that works (worked) great. I built another PC last week and sent the previous one to my brother. Well in the expert care of USPS and my ignorance, the CPU cooler snapped off the mother board and rolled around between the graphics card and PSU while in transit.

So after careful inspection it would appear that nothing is "visibly" wrong with the Graphics card, Motherboard, RAM, or CPU. After replacing the CPU cooler, on boot up...everything turns on, motherboard, fans, etc. But there is no signal to monitor. Time to troubleshoot.

Changed out monitors - nothing. Changed out Graphics card - nothing. Tried all four sticks of RAM individually - nothing.

In my mind that leaves the Motherboard or CPU. Which I don't have extras of either laying around.

On a Motherboard bench test, reset CMOS and battery. All though it lights up and turns on, there is no audible beep from the onboard speaker. I am guessing the board is the problem, but I was looking to see if anyone thinks it is the CPU.

I figure the CPU is protected pretty well inside its slot with the metal plate on top, but I am not sure. Any advice would be great, thanks.

 

[badge]

Try reseating all cables to the MB including hard drive, optical drive, floppy and fans, etc. If you have to, try booting the system with CPU/HSF, video card and RAM only. Unplug everything else. This way you are limiting the problem to the MB, PSU, CPU, RAM or VC and eliminating any loose connection that may have occured while shipping.

 

[serrith]

Thanks for the quick reply. We tried a test with the motherboard out of the case to avoid a short problem using only the CPU, video card, and RAM. Same problem occurs though.

I am almost ruling out the RAM because I feel the odds of all four sticks getting destroyed is pretty slim, but I guess stranger things have happened.

 

[rolli59]

It is possible that one out of the four sticks of ram is causing the problem. Try starting up with one at a time, if you have them all in and one is bad it does not work.

 

[inspector71]

Your motherboard may have been damaged with that cooler bouncing around during shipping. Keep trying though mabye i am wrong.

 

[Shadow703793]

Next time: Don't use USPS (removing HSF would also help, so would using a bolt in cooler). Use FedEx, never had problems with FedEx yet .

 

[Shadow703793]

On a more serious note:

Start with the graphics card, then move on to RAM, then motherboard, then CPU/PSU. In that order.