Help! no image on booting. no beep sound.

[misskenton]

I was just using the computer in the afternoon to play games and at night when i tried to turn it on, there was no image. There is an LED light for power and one for HDD. When i turned it on, the LED for hdd did not light up but the LED for the power did. So after i have pressed the power button, the CPU fan works but there was no beep sound and there was no image on the screen.

I have not installed any hardware or programmes recently. I just did an antivirus check last Friday and it was clean. I did a RAM test using memtest86 in feb and the ram was working. My monitor says no signal after my com starts up. When i switch on the monitor without connecting it to the CPU it says no video input.

Here are the specs of my computer: It is a self-assembled computer that i got last September. Have been working fine without any problems. No hardware upgrade done so far.

Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9400
Kingston HyperX 4GB (KHX8550D2K2/4G)
Western Digital 1.0TB HDD (WD10EADS)
OCZ 500MXSP 500w PSU
Asus P5q SE Plus Motherboard

I'm using Windows XP. Before i successfully shut down on the last use, i connected an Ipod. Ipod is still working fine.

Here are the steps that i took:

1. Checked that the 4 pin CPU connector was plugged in.
2. Tried booting up the com with either one of the sticks of RAM. No beep sound and no image but cpu fan works on both occasions where there was only one stick of RAM.
3. Ensure that the CPU fan is plugged in because it works.
4. Did a visual check for any worn out wires/dust/dirt did not find any.


My usage of the computer is about 5 hours a day up to 7 days a week. Not too sure if going to a computer repairman is a good option because they like to charge alot just for diagnosis.

Please help me out here. Thanks!

 

[Pro Llama]

So your bios doesn’t even show up? You say that you hear no beep codes, but does your motherboard have a speaker attached to it? It sounds like it could be the motherboard but I would do a full rebuild of the system. For some reason taking everything apart and putting it back together can solve issues some times. It also gives you a chance to better inspect each part.

 

[misskenton]

Nope bios doesnt even show up. I hear no beep code. I dismantle the CPU cover to search if the motherboard has a speaker (im assuming it's a small round device attached directly to the motherboard right? thats what i read in other threads) i cant find it but im not too sure if it's because i cant identify it or it is not there. either way from what i recall there was always a beep when i could boot normally last time.

 

[saaiello]

I would say its the PSU OCZ aren't really the best PSU's and a bad PSU would cause your problem.

You didn't list a GPU what GPU are you using?

 

[misskenton]

Im using a PowerColour HD 4870. The PSU is pretty new and i only use my computer to play games. No OC. I just want to get a clearer picture of at least what's working and what's most likely to be faulty.

 

[pcfixed]

yeah that happened to me, but I was doing usb bios upgrades, i eneded up replacing the caps on my motherboard because the usb somehow shorted it and removed the defective usb port.

what happens when you power it on without the processor in there?

 

[misskenton]

from the symptoms that i have said, is anyone able to tell definitively whether the psu is faulty, the motherboard or both?

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Have you tried booting with no RAM installed? If you have a system speaker then the system should beep like crazy with no RAM installed. Silence would point to the motherboard being faulty unless you don't have a system speaker. The system speaker plugs in near the front panel connections.

Here's a checklist to give you a methodical method of troubleshooting:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-perform-steps-posting-boot-video-problems

 

[blahdot3h]

from the symptoms that i have said, is anyone able to tell definitively whether the psu is faulty, the motherboard or both?

I had just run into this problem with a friends computer. If you don't have on board video on your computer, your computer may not post. If you have a backup video card, test it in the computer. If that doesn't work, it's possible you have the exact same problem as us. In our case, the computer was working fine and then it started to experience this problem. In our case we found out that the PCI-E slots were bad on the mobo (dead mobo), the GPU was fried, and we suspected the PSU to be the problem so we refused to plug it back in. Replacing the GPU, the mobo, and the PSU fixed the problem. If you have backup hardware you're going to want to check it all to see which of your stuff was shot by the PSU.