What's wrong with my computer?

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andycerrone

andycerrone

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Hey, I can't figure out what's wrong with my computer (duh). Anyways. A while back I replaced the motherboard. Then it fried again (or at least did the same exact thing again). BUt the guy wouldn't cover it caus eit was two days after warrenty. Let's just say I'll never do business with him again. Anyways, I threw it in the garage for a year, and I pulledi t out about a month ago, and decided to try to fix it myself. I would consider myself a quick learner, and knew I could probably figure out how to wire it in myself if i tinkered with it. Which i am pretty sure I did. So i did a little reading and research, and bought a NEW motherboard for $25 (which with installation cost me $200), and got a new power supply cord for $20, and wired it all in. The problem is, the "problem" is still there. The monitor shows no signs of being connected. And since I highly doubt it's the motherboard, any suggestions? I'm pretty sure it's not the hard drive either, because it worked fine the last time the computer was used. Is there anything even left? The monitor works with other computers fine, as well. Thanks!
 
what made you think that the motherboard was fried? you paid $175 for a motherboard install? $20 for a power cable? my man.........you are getting reamed!

it sounds like an issue with the video card to me. is it onboard video?
 
It does sound like a Video Card issue, though if your RAM is crap it would yield the same results. When you turn the PC on does it actually turn on? What kind of sounds does it make? Anything else noteable other than it doesn't show a picture on the monitor?


And yeah, you're getting reamed hard dude. Check out www.newegg.com, good prices, and building a PC is pretty much "cakewalk" hehe :p There's pretty much only one place things plug in, and when there is more than one option, a few pointers and you are well on your way to PC building freedom. The manuals for Mobos are available on the manufacturers website and those are always more informative than the included paper versions. The entire motherboard layout is included in the manual with a description of each pin and what it's for, etc.

To start off I'd look over a detailed manual and familiarize yourself with a few key pieces. Mainly the front panel pins, for the HD LEDs the power and reset button, etc. With the board installed these are usually the pins at the bottom right, the wires going to the inside front of your case go there.

There will be 2 IDE ports on the board, one for harddrive, one for CDRom, the manual will state which is which. Using two CDRoms, set the pin configuration on the back of each drive to "cable select" then using the appropriate calbe, plug the "master" plug into one drive, and the "secondary" or "slave" plug into the second, same with IDE harddrives.

Make sure the socket type of the CPU is compatible with the board's socket,

get a cpu cooler.

AGP slots on the board are typically video card related with the exception of PCI Express which is the growing fad these days.

PCI slots are pretty much for everything else

RAM - If using multiple sticks, try to stick with same brand, same speed, same capacity (Example: Rosewill 512mb PC3200) Make sure the RAM sticks (and everything else) are seated properly in their slots.

If it has a 4pin molex connector it needs to be plugged into the power supply

If your case has places for a fan/s, make sure there is one there. Don't ignore the ability of your case/fans to keep your hardware cool.

If there is a hole in a piece of hardware, and it lines up with a hole somewhere in the case, it's probably a good idea to put a screw in it.



What you have to have:

Mobo
CPU/fan
Harddrive
Ram
CDRom
Case/fans
Power Supply
screws for all of the above (should come with the mobo and/or case)
cables to connect all of the above (each piece should come with generic cables but sometimes they don't)

All the extra shit is just that, extra shit, add and take away at your desire.

Feel free to PM me if you decide to take the plunge and build from scratch, not that I am teh uber PC building guru but I've got a few boxes under my belt, and I'd be more than happy to help out.
 
yes, ram could also give you no video. i have also had stubborn video cards that took ALOT of effort to get working. check for compatability of your parts: mb chipset, cpu, ram, video chipset. computers can be a pain.
 
I paid $200 when i got it fixed the first time, then it blew up. I was younger and stupid, and my parents paid for it anyway (I was like.. 16). Anyways, I bought the parts myself this time and it was only $45 for the motherboard and the power supply. But ya, I have no idea where the video card would be, looking into my computer. And there is a 4 prong wire that's coming out of the power supply that I cannot for the life of me figure out where it plugs in. I'll take some pictures of what it's looking like right now and if you guys have an suggestions, that'd be awesome. I'm actually now thinking of using this computer that I'm typing on and cleaning out the hard drive because it's got higher potential than the old computer and just fix that up enough to take the beating of everyday use. Either way, I need to get that computer to work.
Also, I did wire everything correct (or so it seems) from what I read from you guys. Thanks a lot, I at least know I didn't screw up too bad then. Any idea where I'd plug in the four prong wire, and if it's possible that i have no videa card? cause I just cannot find anything like that. the only thing that would be considered a "card" inside the computer are the motherboard, the ram stick, and the phone jack board thing. Other than that, there's nothing. Yipes.


Edit: Yeah. That card is the video card. It's a peice of crap, I'm willing to bet. So it probably blew out. Anyways, what would you guys suggest for a video card for and AMD Athelon XP with 256 (soon 512) MB of ram?
 
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Do you play video games, or just surf the web and misc. tasking? There are some very nice Nvidia cards out there for around 80 bucks. If you can, take a few pics of the inside of your PC and post them, maybe we can see better what you are refering to.
 
andycerrone said:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v422/broknrekord3/computer/DSCF1880.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v422/broknrekord3/computer/DSCF1882.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v422/broknrekord3/computer/DSCF1884.jpg

That's a little of what I've got right now. It won't really be for games, just internet use and AIM.
Click to expand...
The brown slot is for the videocard, so if you are pluging in your monitor into your computer your motherboard must have built in video. let me ask you a couple of basic questions:
1) when you first turn on the computer does anything come up one the screen at all?

2) did you install windows in again when you installed the new motherboard, or did you just plug in the old harddrive that had windows on it?
 
Nothing comes up on the screen at all. And yes, i just plugged the old hard drive in that had windows on it, cause it came with the computer, i don't have a disk.
 
Can you post a full view of the entire board? As close up as possible, but the entire mother board. It should atleast show a boot screen and you should be able to access the bios regardless of the disposition of the operating system.

Move your stick of RAM to the slot closest to the processor and see what happens.
 
what mother board are you running (brand and model #). btw, that's onboard video. i can see the edge of the blue video header just below the big pink printer header.
 
Ok, first off, try the ram in the slot closest to the processor. If that yields no noticeable results, take out the watch battery lookin' thing, count to 30 (slowly) and put it back in. Turn it on and see what happens. That resetst he bios to factory defaults. Maybe find a cheap agp video card to test in the agp slot, plug monitor into that and see what happens. Find a friend with a windows xp disc and stick it in the cdrom drive and reboot.
 
when you turn the machine on, do you hear any beeps? if so, how many? more than two usually indicates a problem. three usually means that the video adapter failed to initialize. btw, where have you been getting this same motherboard from? hopefully not ebay.

if you have a video card that you could borrow from another machine, that would help in troubleshooting.
 
When I turn it on, it' just makes that whining sound when it's firing up, no beeps. As for the motherboard, the first one i dont' know where it came from, the guy who installed it bought it. The one i just got for $25 i got from ebay, cause i just wanted to see if maybe i could fix it myself. I think there's a video card in the computer i'm typing on right now, but i'm not sure. if there is, i'll try it out to see how it responds.
 
Any chance a pin got bent on the processor during install?
 
idon't remember anything getting really knocked around when I put it in. I don't know if this means anything, but I tried, just for the heck of it, to see what would happen if i plugged my hard drive from that computer into the hard drive spot of this computer. It told me it needed a disk to reboot, or something like that. Does that mean the hard drive was responding normally? I was just thinking maybe it would be a way to see if the problem was within the hard drive.
 
If you're not getting video, the hard drive is not an issue, but it's good to know it's working. Have you tested the monitor, itself?
 
The monitor is the same one i use for this computer. So it apparently works. I'm going with the whole sherlock holmes approach. Cross off all possibilities and you'll be left with the problem. :cool:

Edit: What if the Ram was busted, would that cause the screen to show nothing? Cause i know the ram got knocked around a bit when i took it out, so is that a possibility?
 
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