Has my motherboard/power supply died, or can it be something else?

[xmorbidartx]

Alrighty was directed to this apparently great/helpful website by a friend who had a problem fixed so i'll give it a try.

First of
Specs;

 - Windows vista Ultimate
 - ECS Elite group 945GCT-M motherboard supporting/using Intel Core 2 Duo.
 -  Patriot dual PC2-6400 ddr2 memory
    Power Supply and any other information required I apologize for not providing at this time since i'm not sure if it'll be necessary to know yet.


Well i'll give a bit of background of the Computer. It was a custom built tower that I purchased over at a PC swapmeet a few months back. I had it at home for a few months until I began to notice my system hanging for short periods of times after a while of using, I checked Vista's Event Viewer, turns out I had several warnings of bad sectors and some predictions that my Hard Drive would eventually crash, I did nothing as of yet to replace it, was pretty much waiting for it to happen.

The hard drive got worse as weeks rolled by to where eventually when attempting to boot up my PC, i'd get an error saying something like "no disk drive, press any key to reboot" can't exactly recall. Eventually the time came where I was working on a school paper that like a fool I did not save in time so my PC hung again and out of anger I actually kicked it mildly hard  . Once I did that, the screen went black.

I attemped to reboot my computer, but the power on/off, and reset buttons wouldnt function, nor would the LED lights show. I opened up my tower, and went through a long process of removing the hard drive, memory sticks, video card, any other add-on cards I had, thinking one of them may have somehow dislodged, causing a fault in the booting. However, regardless of whether everything was disconnected and I switched the power supply on, or everything was connected and I switched it on, the power supply turned on, the fans on my motherboard go on and if connected, one of my CD-ROM drives appears to be read... but nothing else is read, and my pc hangs. Nothing is shown on the screen. I attempted to check the Front Panel Header connectors, switching em around and putting em back in their place. Still no luck.

Even tho the Hard drive is destined to die out, I still tried it out on a different Computer, the hard drive worked fine there, so I guess we can eliminate the hard drive being the problem for the time being.

Im 99.9% certain the video card/memory sticks/CD-Rom drives/floppy disk are not to blame here, the main suspects appear to be the Motherboard, Processor or Power Supply and of course the Hard Drive.

Thing's to note however;
   - My power supply has a 1/0 switch, when I flip it on, the pc powers on by itself (just no response from anything else, no activity), I can't power it off with the front panel power button, to turn it off I have to switch it off from the power supply.

  - Again the fans on the motherboard and sides run when the 24 pin power connecter is connected to the motherboard just no response on reading anything else except for one CD-rom drive.

I'm sure I may have caused this to stop functioning with the kick, eliminating any "New Installed hardware", "websites visited" etc possibilities., just trying to help narrow it down to what is actually not functioning, and hoping any of you may be able to guide me on what to replace or what I may be forgetting.

Thanks for the help!

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Welcome to ComputerHope.

I'm still in the process of going through your very well informed post and I just want to start by asking a few questions.

Even tho the Hard drive is destined to die out, I still tried it out on a different Computer, the hard drive worked fine there, so I guess we can eliminate the hard drive being the problem for the time being.

the main suspects appear to be the Motherboard, Processor or Power Supply and of course the Hard Drive.

These two points seem to contradict each other.
Are you saying that you tried the hard drive on the broken computer on another computer and it worked?

Also, any ideas where you might have kicked it?

[xmorbidartx]

Yes, I know the hard drive is going to die out eventually, according to the Event Viewer's predictions, as well as the fact that sometimes when I rebooted my computer, i'd get an error saying "no disk drive, press any key to reboot" or something of the sort. Unless this message was given for something else I may not be aware of, I simply blamed it on the hard drive.

But for the sake of trying out everything to make sure it isn't the current problem (as well as saving some time/money in buying a new hard drive to test out =P) I connected my non-working computer's hard drive in another computer as a slave, and it worked fine apparently, was able to access it's files and such. Sorry for the confusion, and I should be thanking you for taking the time to help!

As to where I kicked it, oddly enough in the front, around where the floppy diskette and Power on/reset buttons are.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Hmmm..... No disk in drive.....

If you go into the BIOS, does it detect the Hard Drive?
Also, make sure that the Hard Drive is first on the boot list.

[xmorbidartx]

Yea that's just my problem right there;

For one, the only way I can turn my Computer on is by switching the switch at the back of the power Supply on, can't access it with the front panel button.

Secondly when I turn it on from the power supply, nothing occurs, it reads one of my CD-ROM drives, but apparently it stops detecting everything else, as if it just freezes, the boot order is perfectly fine, didn't change it at all, and I can't check either way since like I said, it stops responding, the screen is blank the entire time. So i'm unable to acess the BIOS.

As for the error, i'm sure it wasn't "No disk in drive" I just can't recall completely, perhaps "boot disk failure?" In fact I think that's what it said lol.
It really seems to me that the mother board or something connecting to it that may have somehow been severely affected, can't be too sure >.<.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

If you can, I would try another PSU.

Also, perhaps try removing the CMOS Battery (on the motherboard) for about 20 minutes and see what that does. If the problem remains, replace it.

[xmorbidartx]

WEll actually I happened to have read another post where it was suggested to remove the batter for 20 minutes which I removed and just now I reconnected. Difference was, when I switched the Power Supply switch on, the computer didn't turn on by itself, I then pressed the front panel power button, the button finally responded and turned on. However even tho the button was responsive, still nothing showed up on my screen, still froze right at the power up.

Could this possibly mean it may very well be a bad battery? I usually leave my PC on for days so i'd assume that may attribute to the batteries problem. It just seems to be a big coincidence that the battery happened to die when I decided to kick my PC hard and got a blank screen, maybe the battery was on the verge of suicide and I just pushed "kicked" it off the edge eh? lol. As for a new CPU, i'll try that as a last resort. Thanks.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

As for a new CPU

PSU = Power Supply Unit.
 

So yeah, it may be the battery.

You may also want to try another monitor....just in case the current one has decided to fail too. 

[xmorbidartx]

yea PSU* lol.

The monitor is fine, i'm using a backup PC to type here this moment. Dont worry I wont trouble you with nubbish problems lol..even tho kicking a PC is pretty nubish.

Question tho; would you know if those are symptoms you'd recieve from a bad/dead Battery?

Where the power supply does in fact turn on, activate the fans but just doesnt start detecting my hardware and stay stuck in nothingness?

I just really want to get to the bottom of what went wrong, a new battery i'll try.

Oh and last question..any recommendations on what battery get? Not too keen on the differences/brands or for what sort of Mother boards >.>

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Question tho; would you know if those are symptoms you'd recieve from a bad/dead Battery?

What do you mean here? The symptoms of a dead battery?
It can be numerous things like not being able to detect hardware on startup and not keeping time.

Where the power supply does in fact turn on, activate the fans but just doesnt start detecting my hardware and stay stuck in nothingness?

When you turn the computer on, can you see/hear everything get power or are there things still lying dormant?

Oh and last question..any recommendations on what battery get

Just get the same Button Cell Battery with the same ID Number on it.

[xmorbidartx]

Yea, I hear the fans obviously, and apparently now both drives appear to be getting detected since the lights flash, my video card's fan also spins, as for video, still can't see anything so can't be sure whether I can actually go into my BIOS, but I also tried the incorporated video card, so I doubt both just stopped functioning.

Also, just now I was able to turn on the computer with the front panel button, as well as hold it for 5 seconds to turn it back off. TRied to do it a second time, It wouldn't turn off, so ye I suppose it may be due to the battery.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Try changing it and see what happens. 

[artvandelay]

Hello all,

This is my very first post and first time to this site.

I am having the same problem and I think its the processor. I had this happen once and it was my Intel 3.0ghz p4 processor. It became over heated somehow. I have a gigabyte fan with speed control on it and it still keeps frying. I also used the thermal gel on it and nothing seems to help. my board is an Intel desktop Perl865. I think Intel has cooling issues. I have an adequate amount of fans in my cooler master tower. I will try to diagnose my problem this weekend and I'll post my results. I hope this helps.

[xmorbidartx]

Well I bought myself a new battery, same one as the one my motherboard was using, still nothing, same non functioning reset/turn off button and hang.

Could very well just be what I original thought, Motherboard or Processor...still have doubts that it's the psu. Sucks to be me!

[drmsucks]

Unplug the computer from the wall; ground yourself.

Follow the leads from the case power switch to the motherboard and remove the connector; do the same for the reset switch, if the computer has one. Make careful note of where the connector(s) were connected.

Plug the computer in, make sure that the PSU power switch is "on," and, very carefully, momentarily short the two contacts that the case power switch connector was on.

Post back with results.

Additionally, download and run the hard drive diagnostic software from the website of your hard drive manufacturer.