PC Won't Start Up

[EssexMame]

Hi
I wonder if the many here who know more than I can help.

I have an old Gigagbyte GA-K8N SLi socket 939 motherboard with an AMD graphics card (PCI-e). It won't now start up. The pwert kicks in, fans whirr and I'm able to power the HD which I have plugged in via a USB-Sata adapter to a working PC. I've scanned the HD this way and all is good. However, the PC won't start up. Nothing comes on screen. No beeps. There is power, as I say. I'm wondering if it is the graphics card but without a suitable equivalent to try it is difficult to prove. The motherboard doesn't have its own display/graphics port so I can't use that as an alternative.

Is it likely the GPU, or perhaps the motherboard? How do I determine which with no error beeps or on-screen POST to help determine the problems?

I want to use this PC as an arcade going forward. It is/was decent with early mame at least, and actually ran some other emulators pretty well. It's got the FX-60 CPU which whilst old now had some juice. Not ideal being non-Intel with Mame I know but good enough. If I can get it going!

[Malenko]

pull all the cards and see if it boots. If it still fails, try another power supply.

[big10p]

What graphics card is it? I got a brand new HD 5450 which I thought was DOA as I couldn't get any screen output with it. Also, like you, I didn't get any error beeps or anything. I tried it in another PC and it worked fine, so I knew the card wasn't faulty. Upgrading the BIOS on the original PC got it working. Can't say if this is your problem but might be worth trying.

[nitrogen_widget]

pull all but one stick of ram out.
then swap that one stick with another if it still doesn't POST to verify it isn't the RAM.

[pbj]

Have you tried turning it off and back on?

[PL1]

Have you tried turning it off and back on?

Maybe Jen broke the internet again.        


Scott

[RandyT]

A lot of motherboards used cheap capacitors in the power section, usually near the CPU.  If they are bulging or have crusty stuff on the tops, there's a good chance they are the culprits. 

It's going to be tough to troubleshoot without extra parts.  But every main board I have seen has had some diagnostic tones, even with no memory or graphics card installed.  Pull out everything, make sure the internal speaker is properly connected, power it up and listen for beeps.  No beeps usually means a bad motherboard, cpu or power supply.  You can check the supply with a multi-meter, but that will be the only thing you can test without parts to swap.

[EssexMame]

Thanks All. I'll give it all a try at the weekend and let you know how I got on.

[leapinlew]

No beeps usually means a bad motherboard, cpu or power supply. 

Agreed, and sometimes bad ram will cause no beeps.

I've never had a faulty CPU. I seem to have my hard drive failures than anyone else though.

[CCM]

I recently ran into a similar issue with a friend's old PC.  After banging my head against the wall for a few days, it turned out to be a dead CMOS battery.  I have never run into a computer that wouldn't boot with a dead CMOS battery before, but I guess it can happen depending on the motherboard and bios. 

[pbj]

Yep, that can do it, too.  My circa-2004 computer in one of my cabinets won't boot with a dead CMOS battery.

[RandyT]

Agreed, and sometimes bad ram will cause no beeps.

I didn't indicate removal of the RAM, but that should be done as well. Lack of RAM is usually one of the diagnostic beeps.

I recently ran into a similar issue with a friend's old PC.  After banging my head against the wall for a few days, it turned out to be a dead CMOS battery.  I have never run into a computer that wouldn't boot with a dead CMOS battery before, but I guess it can happen depending on the motherboard and bios. 

Good call.  I had one do this to me as well.  The funny thing was that it would boot when I physically pulled the MB power connector and then plugged it back in (still showed CMOS setting loss).  But it wouldn't boot again after it was shut off, even if I pulled the power cord.  Replaced the CMOS battery and it boots every time.  Odd stuff.