I think I fried MOBO or a connector, thoughts/advice?

[ecurl66]

Hey TH community,

I hate creating accounts JUST to ask questions but I've been wanting to register here for some time anyway...no time like when i need help, I guess.
I recently have been having BSOD crashes (general hardware failure, still investigating root cause), but yesterday I opened my case and reseated/cleaned some components.

When I tried to boot back up, the pc won't POST or boot into BIOS, just the case/component fans come on, the case lights, and the mobo light.

I checked all the jumpers and RAM seating, that looked good, I didn't notice any static shock and tried to ground myself as best as possible initially, but I can't seem to get the machine to boot.

I don't have a speaker onboard on my mobo, so I don't get any BIOS chirps, even with the RAM removed. Its not an old board, just a cheaper board for mid-range gaming.

My current hypothesis is that I nuked the GPU or the board when i was reseating/cleaning. Hadn't ever run into this before and I have done the same process in the past. Any thoughts, or does my idea sound correct?

Here's my build, the mobo is a 'to the best of my knowledge', I don't remember 100% if thats my board but the specs seem to match:

ASUS M4A77TD AM3+ MOBO
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T 6-core CPU
2x8gb Corsair vengeance 1600mhz RAM
XFX Radeon HD 5770 video card
Kingston 850w PSU


Thanks in advance!

 

[cbag]

Not sure if you did, but whenever you work on your pc turn off the power on the PSU. Then hold the power button for the pc itself until you hear the discharge. Only then should you work on the pc. I typically take it somewhere that static won't be a problem, then put on one of those static wrist wraps. Sometimes if I am really paranoid I'll put down a wet towel and stand on that while I work. It is really dry and staticcy where I live.

Try using just 1 stick of ram on your next boot. And try it in different slots if it the pc is still acting strange.

 

[ecurl66]

Thanks for the reply? When i worked on the PC yesterday, i neglected to discharge- had done this several times since I built, but never had an issue. I realized this was probably a mistake last night.

I also tried 1 stick, no sticks, and 2 sticks in different parallel slots, but no dice, still failing to do anything besides power on with just fans.

Edit: Just got to work, thought I'd add some more info, when I have the PSU disconnected it seems like I have to wait 2-3 minutes before trying to boot again, not sure if this is normal, because I've not seen this before.

If it is normal, ignore my stupidity, its my first build and I haven't had to do any troubleshooting besides minor cleaning in almost 2 years.

Edit 2: The system won't power off by holding down the power button, only by flipping the killswitch or unplugging. This might help with diagnosis. Still looking for some more troubleshooting before I start testing for fried hardware.

 

[velosteraptor]

Sounds like a motherboard problem. Although if you did fry the mobo, it couldve taken other components with it.


When you power the pc on, does the monitor register input? or does it just stay in sleep mode?

 

[ecurl66]

Sounds like a motherboard problem. Although if you did fry the mobo, it couldve taken other components with it.


When you power the pc on, does the monitor register input? or does it just stay in sleep mode?

Nope, it sits in sleep, and the mouse is inactive as well as other peripherals.

 

[velosteraptor]

If youve got onbaord graphics, try that. If not, consider getting a $20 cheapie card from staples or similar and see if that fixes it. If not, you can return the card.

If your motherboard is under warranty still maybe contact asus and see if you could RMA it.

 

[ecurl66]

No warranty at least on the video card, unfortunately, I was lazy and didn't fill out the paperwork.

Plus I've had the rig for almost 2 years. I'll check with Asus to see if they will RMA it.

Another thought, is there a board on par with my current one that has a speaker/onboard video card so I don't have issues like this in the future?