Dead on reboot

[tromba]

I'm pretty sure this is my VERY LAST homebuilt machine. I've been doing this for 15 years and it's getting worse and worse!!!! Last year I bought a bare bones from Tiger (spent around $200) and it eventually got where it wouldn't run (don't even remember why).

So I decided it was worth it to start over and use what I thought were very good parts

Gigabyte P965 S3 motherboard
Antec True Power Trio PS
ATI x1950 pro video card
4 gig OCZ 800 mhz RAM
Maxtor and WD SATA drives
Plextor and Samsung SATA opticals
e6600 Intel processor


Two weeks ago one program was behaving strangely (my fault because I forgot that I had a PS2 keyboard plugged in the back in addition to my usual USB KVM -- something fell on the keyboard and the space bar was held down)

I powered off, removed the PS2 keyboard, rebooted and NOTHING appears on screen at all, not even the video banner. Fans start, drives power up but no beep, nothing on screen. Pulled it off the KVM and tried it separately. Nothing. Pulled the ATI video card and put in an old PCI card. Nothing. Tried an analog and a digital monitor. Nothing.

Don't know what else to do but throw it out my 2nd story window, but the window doesn't open that far

What have I missed???

Any suggestions?

 

[frozenlead]

The GPU is fairly old, they do die after a while.

Did you make sure that all your machines dying isn't due to your KVM?

Why are you using one, anyway?

 

[auscanzukus]

Before you throw it out the window, I'm pulling in a pick-up truck with a matress in it.

Start fresh & simple. Ditch KVM. Unplug power cord, clear cmos for 10 mins, try each ram stick in each slot, up vdimm on POST, then install the other sticks.

Your specs aren't that outdated. The mobo is a capable overclock. Throw in a 65nm quad Q6600 and swap the gpu out with HD 4850. You're back in the game. You can o/c the quad to 3ghz on stock cooling.

 

[tromba]

The GPU is fairly old, they do die after a while.

It's not THAT old... I built this about 18 months ago (OK, so in computer years it IS old) but should still be functioning just fine.....

Did you make sure that all your machines dying isn't due to your KVM?

Never actually thought of that.... The main problem I had with this $200 Tiger setup was that the only OS I had was Vista (machine ran Vista RC1 and RC2 with no problems) but it would never run Vista real version. I needed a Windows machine and didn't want to spend more money just to buy XP

Why are you using one, anyway?

I have my "main" machine where I do most of my work (college professor) and a windows music machine (recording, music editing, iTunes server so I can get to my music in the classroom), a Mac that runs our department databases in Filemaker, and a Linux server for student access for their websites in my computer class. There's probably a better way with software or something, but I've just had KVM for years and am used to it.

 

[tromba]

Before you throw it out the window, I'm pulling in a pick-up truck with a matress in it.

it's only a 2nd story window so you wouldn't need that many mattresses.

Start fresh & simple. Ditch KVM. Unplug power cord, clear cmos for 10 mins, try each ram stick in each slot, up vdimm on POST, then install the other sticks.

Already ditched the KVM and had the machine set up separate with a separate monitor. Can't do an POST because there is NOTHING on screen. I don't think I've actually cleared CMOS on the MB yet, so I should do that.

Your specs aren't that outdated. The mobo is a capable overclock. Throw in a 65nm quad Q6600 and swap the gpu out with HD 4850. You're back in the game. You can o/c the quad to 3ghz on stock cooling.

I thought about doing that, but given that everything I've built myself the last few years has given problems, I thought I'd go with a stock machine that won't cause any problems and will always work exactly like it should!!! :lol: Just got an HP quad core 9somethiing with 6 gig RAM and ended up paying LESS than just the parts on this one causing problems (found a good discount -- something like 30% off)

 

[tromba]

try each ram stick in each slot, up vdimm on POST, then install the other sticks

That did it.... there are 4 DDR2 6400 OCZ's and one pair worked and one pair didn't. Trying them one at a time, 3 worked and 1 didn't.

And although this isn't the topic of this thread, 2 of these are 4-4-4-15 and two are 4-5-4-15. I looked this up once and found it had to do with timings but none of it made much sense at the time. As long as they are all DDR2 PC6400 and I'm not over clocking, that shouldn't matter, should it?

 

[auscanzukus]

Best stick with standards like 5-5-5-15. Guaranteed to work. In your case, you should stick with the loose timings 4-5-4-15.