Pc wont post with video card in it

[Protohealer1]

Ok so I have a older PC, and don't really have the money to spend on building a new for a few more months. I'm running Windows 7 64 ultimate and a few weeks ago I put the PC to sleep (which I never do) and in the morning it would not wake up..... so the trouble shooting began, and I ended up having to pull the video card out to get the PC to post. I took the video card down to a local PC shop and he put it in his test rig and the card works fine. Also I just put a new PSU in about a 1 month ago (powerup 450 watt) I know it's not a good PSU but again this is a old PC (late 2005). I've tried running the blank screen fix, pulling all the ram except 1 stick out and nothing helps. If I put the video card in the fans on the PC go to full tilt spin and it won't post at all. I had bought a ATI radeon 5560 (I think) and had the same problem with it posting and the tech support guy from XFX said my Bios was to old to see the newer video cards.

Hp m7334n (Mb is MSI 7184 not the asus one)
3g DDR ram
WC 500gb HD
BFG nvidia 8800 GT GPU
Win7 64 ultimate
Powerup 450 watt psu

 

[jsc]

Web search says that your motherboard has a PCIe-X16 slot for a video card. I'd think that if an 8800GT works, a 5560 should.

Troubleshooting ideas:
Work through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If not, continue.

I have tested the following beeps patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU. You do have a case speaker installed, right? If not, you really, really need one. If your case or motherboard didn't come with a system speaker, you can buy one here:
http://www.cwc-group.com/casp.html

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU.

Motherboard LED's mean very little. When on, all they are telling you is that the computer os plugged into a live power socket and the PSU is switched.

Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps:
At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card. Silence or long single beeps indicate a problem with the memory.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.

 

[Protohealer1]

I've done all the tests and checked the voltages with a DMM all are with in spec..... I don't get any beeps nor do I see a header on MB to hook up a speaker.... but there is a speaker on the MB. Is there software to check the PCI express slots or is it possible that the MBR got corrupt

 

[kiban]

Oh well....

That thing when the pc is put to sleep, and doesn't wake up. Then starts to power up nicely and the next minute enters in "post" error.

Well, that happened to me like a year ago or so. Turned out to be the PSU. But the PSU was very good, new, expensive, enough power etc..

I have a few friends, that had the exact same problem. Weird enough, to all of us happened under Windows vista/7.

So yeah, don't use sleep feature anymore ¬¬, it "brakes" power supply, no matter how new and good they are.

Now, I'm no expert on that matter, but a tech friend of mine did an extensive test (changing piece by piece to see what's the cause).

Worst of it all? :

The warranty of my power supply had 3 years, and after sending it for repair they concluded the PSU was perfectly fine. Because, the PC did indeed start sometimes, most of the times didn't though.

I blame Gates.

PS: To know if it is the same problem I had, if your PC is silent and cool( meaning you can tell the difference between fan sounds), when turning on the PC and going into post error, the graphic card fan always went to 100%, and the motherboard showed "high voltage readings", which was a false positive.

 

[kiban]

Trust me buddy, it is your PSU, try getting a different one from a friend or something, or buy another one.

 

[Protohealer1]

Trust me buddy, it is your PSU, try getting a different one from a friend or something, or buy another one.

I just dont see how it could be the PSU.... How could putting win 7 to sleep do anything to the PSU?

 

[Protohealer1]

so neither card works now.?

I only have 1 video card but it was checked in a known good PC, and the PC works.... I'm typing on it now, it just wont post with video card installed.