Computer question

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » September 10, 2003, 3:42 pm

A little bit ago my computer made a strangled sounding beep and all the drive lights and such on the front came on.

When I turned it on and off, no beeps, drives didn't spin up, nothing. The lights come on quite nicely though

I pulled the video, KB and mouse and tried again, same results. Same when I swapped out the power supply. I'm guessing blown CPU or MB as I should have at least gotten some error beeps with the components pulled. Anything else it could be?

TIA

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » September 10, 2003, 3:48 pm

Has to be MB, and it could have fried the processor, of course it could be the overall AC power flow since it is not stable anyways

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » September 10, 2003, 3:59 pm

I'd guess MB also...but I'm not as experienced as others here on hardware.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » September 10, 2003, 6:53 pm

Your problem could be a failure of either the BIOS, CPU, IDE controller (all on motherboard) or drive electronics on the hard drive. Or it could be the power supply. EDIT - duh, you already swapped the power supply.../bonk

I had a very similar situation a few months ago that I swore was attributed to the motherboard's IDE controller that actually turned out to be flakey electronics on the master hard drive.

Unfortunately the only way to know for sure is to swap stuff out. Pull the drive power and data cable. Does the computer POST? If so it's the drive. Otherwise blame the motherboard.

Ebumar · Post by **Ebumar** » September 11, 2003, 3:03 am

This happened to me a few weeks ago. Like Ten said it could be BIOS. I flashed my BIOS and everything went back to its normal shitty self.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 15, 2003, 4:53 pm

To boot, you have to have a keyboard, RAM, some type of video device, a floppy drive a motherboard and CPU.

Replace the cheap stuff one at a time and see if anything changes (keybaord, floppy). Swap the others with old parts, again one at a time if you have spares lying around. Also, pull all but one stick of RAM and see if it makes a difference.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » September 19, 2003, 10:28 am

Ended up being the north bridge chip that failed. Son took it to school and used a 'scope on it.

With everything pulled leaving just a bare board w/ CPU you should get a beep from POST, if the MB is working at all.

Oh well, got a XP 2500 Barton and a new MB to replace it. Now I've got a Gb of PC2100 and a 1600+ CPU sitting in the desk drawer and nothing to use them in. Might be time to upgrade the wife's 1Ghz system, I can get a board for ~$25 that would work with my old 1600+ CPU.