Old PC no beep

[scouse65]

I have a 6yr old PC which was working fine until I tried to start it up today, there was no display nor beep. The motherboard is a Asus M2NPV-VM. I have disconnected all the hard drives, external video card and usb connectors. I have also taken out all the memory sticks. It did post once, with one stick, but when I tried it a second time nothing. So I took out all the sticks, still no beep. I then took out the CMOS battery for 1/2 hr, when I put it back it beeped once, but would not beep a second time. The final thing I did was to remove the battery again and reset its ram data. I again left it for 15mins then reset the jumper and battery, but still no beep. What can I try next or is the motherboard dead?

 

[nekulturny]

There are a few things you can try, although most of them involve spare parts.

You can unseat and reseat everything (you've pretty much already covered this)

You could try a different motherboard with all the components and see if it boots.

You could try another video card.

You could try another power supply.


(see where I'm going with this?) Its probably more trouble than its worth to fix it. A repair shop is probably going to charge you over 100 dollars just to tell you whats wrong with it (since they have the spare parts to test stuff with and I assume you probably dont), and then if they come back and tell you whats dead, its probably going to cost god knows how much to fix it.

You can fiddle with it if you want, how much is it worth to you?

 

[scouse65]

Hi, I am coming to the same conclusion, trouble is it has 2 IDE hard drives and 1 SATA drive, so finding another motherboard which allows me to use my old drives might be hard to find. I don't have lots of money to spend on buying a new PC. I could try the cheap option first by buying a new PSU, what do you think?

 

[nekulturny]

Hi, I am coming to the same conclusion, trouble is it has 2 IDE hard drives and 1 SATA drive, so finding another motherboard which allows me to use my old drives might be hard to find. I don't have lots of money to spend on buying a new PC. I could try the cheap option first by buying a new PSU, what do you think?

Good morning!

I think you'd be throwing money into a pit to be quite honest.

I wouldn't run out and buy a PSU no. Especially not a cheap one (this is one thing you really never ever want to go cheap on). Its also more likely that the board is dead anyway based on what you've told me.

It will be next to impossible to find a new unused board now with onboard IDE headers, or one that will support your CPU. Socket AM2 is now 3 generations old by my count. (Theres been AM2+, AM3, and now we're on AM3+) There are solutions to continue using your old IDE drives. (Such as an enclosure or an adapter) Most of the adapters on the market (including one I have), is not very well made, and is more suited for getting your data off the old drives onto a newer SATA. Meaning, they're not suited for daily use. An enclosure would be the best option if you wish to continue using the IDE drives.

I think your best bet is rather than spending money to figure out whats wrong with a 6 year old computer, you'd be better off considering a new low cost computer. I assume with a computer as old as you have, you're not really needing to do heavy gaming, or anything particularly demanding. If you're just looking for something to get on the internet, type up documents and email friends, and play the occasional game 400 bucks could go a long way. You could very well end up spending an amount that would rival that amount fixing the 6 year old computer.

AMD currently has a very nice little processor called "Fusion", it a processor with an onboard graphics processor. Its perfect for the average Joe who doesn't need a powerful video card to run super fancy brand new games on high detail (even though it can handle most of them on lower settings). You could build a nice little system around that.

 

[scouse65]

Ok thanks for the advice. I do a bit of video editing and I intend building a mobile app, would the fusion processor be able to handle this, also which motherboard would you recommend? Don't really play computer games, and usually the kids use it to play online flash games.

 

[nekulturny]

No problem.

Ideally the Fusion is not the best choice for video editing. However, it will most certainly handle it far better than the system you have now. It is a true quad core processor, (some budget CPUs like Intel i3 and AMD FX-4100 are actually dual cores that "pretend" to have 4) and video editing is where having more cores is advantageous (in games, not so much)

Yes, it will also handle the kids flash games just fine as well.

As promised, here is what $400 can do for you:

Motherboard- $65

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131813

CPU + Graphics- $140
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106001

RAM- $46 8GB (4GB*2)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148544

Power- $45

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

Windows 7 $100- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986


Total: $396

Note: This price doesn't include a case, CD/DVD drive nor a hard drive (this figure assumes you reuse these.

 

[scouse65]

Thanks for all your help Scouse