Boot up problems

[velocci]

Hi there, I have a machine I built myself. about every 6 months or so my PC gets problems booting.
right now its happening again and i'm tired of it. normally when this happens, there are no beep codes and nothing on the screen. the fans are all spinning. but once in a while i get a message on the screen that says "bad checksum". so naturally i assumed the cmos battery needs to be replaced. but i've done that and this problem still persists. I found out on the internet that it could be a virus in my bios. could this be it? if not, what else could be the problem?

 

[evilavatar]

Bios viruses are pretty rare but they do exist. I have no seen one in quite a while and removing the cmos battery should clear anything that is there for the most part. If you can try booting to bios and getting the computer to load, than check if there is a bios update. If you can reflash the bios this should clear anything that is there. This also could be a problem with your power supply as well, as this will sometimes happen when turn the computer off incorrectly. If you have another known good power supply you should try that.

 

[velocci]

is it possible to have a bad power supply even though it powers up all the fans, cdrom, HDD, but prevents the PC from booting, with no beep codes or anything on the screen?

 

[evilavatar]

yup... when the psu dies not everything always dies and parts of the system may still get power, post your specs and we can see exactly how much power you need.

 

[velocci]

Asus A8N32-sli delix motherboard, AMD athlon X2 cpu, OCZ memory, 2 sata hardrives, 1 optical drive, 600W power supply by Liberty I think.

 

[evilavatar]

graphics card?

 

[velocci]

oh i forgot. EVGA 7800GT OC

 

[velocci]

ok I brought my PSU, video card and memory to work and plugged them all into another PC and they work fine. so the problem is either the motherboard or CPU. would you agree? it can't be cause of the hardrive cause even if it was the hardrive, i should at least see somethign on the screen or get beep codes.

 

[evilavatar]

velocci that would seem to make sense. I would start by double checking that their are no wires causing the board to be grounded and that all of the posts that connect the board to the case are in the proper places, than check all the wiring. Does your CPU use the push pins? If so check guide here http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/288241-31-read-posting-buyer-guides-troubleshooting and see if there is anything that stands out.