- Oct 4, 2011
- 35
- 0
- 18,530
I am stuck. I usually know what I am doing on computer repair. This time, however, I have hit a brick wall from the moment I started. I am attempting to repair a machine for a friend. It looks like he did some "shotty" work on it himself, but it got handed off to me. I will list the specs., then tell you what I have tried so far.
Dell Dimension 8400:
Motherboard: Dell Intel motherboard
CPU: Pentium 4 w/ HT
Memory: 2.5 Gb 800mhz (4 sticks)
HDDs: Western Digital 160 Gb and Seagate 160 Gb (both SATA)
Optical: 1 CD and 1 DVD (both IDE)
Video cards: Radeon 1900XT and HD3870x2 (both PCIe)
Monitor: (my monitor) Hanns G 28" Native Res. 1920x1200
PSU: BFG Tech 650 watt
Sound card: Not sure
Broken Specs.:
-3870x2
-x1900XT
-CMOS battery
-Seagate Hard Drive
-512 MB
So I received this pc with everything about except for the 3870x2 from the start. The x1900 was installed. I booted it up to the BIOS. The x1900 was displaying dancing multicolored dots. My initial thought was that it is on its last breath and good thing they got the new card. I was then asked if I could install this pricey 3870x2 in place of the x1900. After installation and both 6 pins connected, I attempted to boot. Boot went fine, but no display at all. So I swapped them back.
When I was able to boot to the BIOS(multicolored pixels and all), I got error messages saying that the CMOS battery was low and that it could not boot. I bought a new CMOS battery and installed it. Then I focused on the drives. The seagate was showing strange things from the BIOS. I changed the RAID config from one option, rebooted, then back to another. This now displayed that the only working drive was the WD. So I now have 2 optical drives working and 1 hard drive. It still insists that it can't boot, regardless of RAID option *there is no off*. I have even put a Windows 7 install disc in the dvd drive. NO DICE.
650 watts seems to be enough to power a P4, dualcore graphics card, and an average amount of everything else. I have even tried to boot using just the video card, ram, and CPU. Still no luck. The card looks like it is new out of the box. So I can't see why it would have any issues. I also took out the 2 added sticks that added a measly 512 MB to the ram. Just to make it closer to stock.
These are my possible theories for the issues:
1.) Power surge/static build up: It seems like every single part in the computer doesn't work. I have never had to replace a CMOS battery, let alone, a video card, Hard drive, and possibly optical drives.
2.) The new video card fried the PSU, Board, Other components, and the PCIe slot.
3.) It is just old and has finally kicked it.
I just built myself a new machine about a month ago. My 580 is keeping my CPU on water, so I couldn't disconnect it. I did however try to use it as a test bench by connecting both of these cards in the second slot and getting to the BIOS. Neither of them displayed anything. This is either my 580 taking priority in the first slot or these are both bad cards. I have 1200 watts so I don't believe that was the issue.
I thank you if you took the time to read all of this, I know it is lengthy. This is, however, a very complex puzzle I am trying to solve. Any advice at all would be much appreciated.
THANK YOU
Dell Dimension 8400:
Motherboard: Dell Intel motherboard
CPU: Pentium 4 w/ HT
Memory: 2.5 Gb 800mhz (4 sticks)
HDDs: Western Digital 160 Gb and Seagate 160 Gb (both SATA)
Optical: 1 CD and 1 DVD (both IDE)
Video cards: Radeon 1900XT and HD3870x2 (both PCIe)
Monitor: (my monitor) Hanns G 28" Native Res. 1920x1200
PSU: BFG Tech 650 watt
Sound card: Not sure
Broken Specs.:
-3870x2
-x1900XT
-CMOS battery
-Seagate Hard Drive
-512 MB
So I received this pc with everything about except for the 3870x2 from the start. The x1900 was installed. I booted it up to the BIOS. The x1900 was displaying dancing multicolored dots. My initial thought was that it is on its last breath and good thing they got the new card. I was then asked if I could install this pricey 3870x2 in place of the x1900. After installation and both 6 pins connected, I attempted to boot. Boot went fine, but no display at all. So I swapped them back.
When I was able to boot to the BIOS(multicolored pixels and all), I got error messages saying that the CMOS battery was low and that it could not boot. I bought a new CMOS battery and installed it. Then I focused on the drives. The seagate was showing strange things from the BIOS. I changed the RAID config from one option, rebooted, then back to another. This now displayed that the only working drive was the WD. So I now have 2 optical drives working and 1 hard drive. It still insists that it can't boot, regardless of RAID option *there is no off*. I have even put a Windows 7 install disc in the dvd drive. NO DICE.
650 watts seems to be enough to power a P4, dualcore graphics card, and an average amount of everything else. I have even tried to boot using just the video card, ram, and CPU. Still no luck. The card looks like it is new out of the box. So I can't see why it would have any issues. I also took out the 2 added sticks that added a measly 512 MB to the ram. Just to make it closer to stock.
These are my possible theories for the issues:
1.) Power surge/static build up: It seems like every single part in the computer doesn't work. I have never had to replace a CMOS battery, let alone, a video card, Hard drive, and possibly optical drives.
2.) The new video card fried the PSU, Board, Other components, and the PCIe slot.
3.) It is just old and has finally kicked it.
I just built myself a new machine about a month ago. My 580 is keeping my CPU on water, so I couldn't disconnect it. I did however try to use it as a test bench by connecting both of these cards in the second slot and getting to the BIOS. Neither of them displayed anything. This is either my 580 taking priority in the first slot or these are both bad cards. I have 1200 watts so I don't believe that was the issue.
I thank you if you took the time to read all of this, I know it is lengthy. This is, however, a very complex puzzle I am trying to solve. Any advice at all would be much appreciated.
THANK YOU
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