PC freezes, won't startup--MB or video card problem?

[tc507]

Brief history. I built a W7 machine a few months ago, and overall it has been working pretty well. I noticed shortly after purchasing that I'd occasionally have problems where my system would entirely freeze up (I thought it was the so-called W7 black screen of death). This would happen about 1-2 times a week.

Things got better and I didn't notice any major problems until last week when my PC froze about 15 times in a 4-day period. Things got better again for 5 days until today. Now I can't even get the machine to boot into Windows at all. The PSU will power-up the machine, but all I see is a black screen. I thought it might be my power supply, but I tried a spare I had and that didn't work either. I'm pretty sure now that it is either my video card or my MB, but don't know for certain. If I disconnect my monitor from the video card, I get the standard notice that the monitor is disconnected, but I'm not sure if that eliminates a video card problem.

Unfortunately I don't have a spare MB or video card to use as a tester, so I'm trying to pinpoint as much as possible. I'm inclined to say it's a MB problem at this point, but these problems are tricky to identify. Does anyone have any ideas?

Motherboard:
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X

Video card:
EVGA GeForce GTS 250

 

[11adnan]

I have also faced same problem and i had another os in the hard drive.But i decided to uninstall the os and a bluetooth device then any how w7 working fine,causing no problem at all.

 

[vvhocare5]

If you cannot remove the drive and look at it to make sure it is healthy, then start by replacing the cheapest components. The PSU is fairly inexpensive, then work your way up to the motherboard.

 

[roonj]

My first question is "PSU will power-up the machine, but all I see is a black screen"
Do you have post? in other words does the bios screen show up, if not spinning fans are not a sign of power-up (opinion).
If system is dead just spinning fans things you can try:
disconnect unneccesary devices, leaving you with just keyboard/video/one stick ram. Clear Cmos as per manual, attempt startup- if post screen bios comes up your on your way and more advise from that point.
If nothing at that point it will be difficult to identify Mboard /video/ram without backup components. Also if you have an old system speaker somewhere and hook it up maybe it can identify problem for you.
good luck

 

[bimvee]

I have the same problem.. almost the same build. Have you come up with a solution?

to roonj
I can access and tweak bios, but once it tries to load the operating system, all I get is a flashing "_" in the top left corner.
I've disconnected all devices like you said, cleared cmos, tested memory sticks one at a time, swapped video cards, and still nothing.

I've gotten win xp to run off an old IDE HDD, so I'm convinced my RAID 0 array has gone bad. I'm putting off wiping that for last.