Could anybody help a noob here with a really wierd problem? :)

[darkrelik]

I have an HP Pavilion a1250n. I just recently bought a Sound Blaster X-fi Elite Pro (PCI) sound card to use with it. When i insert the card into the pc and start it up, the pc does not boot (or post). I have the same exact problem with a newer Nvidia (PCI Express) card.

The problem: When I boot up the pc with any of those two cards in, the screen stays black (The monitor does not wake up from standby). When the pc runs normally and i start it up, the fans will kick in for about ten seconds and then rev down to it's quieter speed. When either of these two cards are in the pc, the fans just stay on and rev high. The processor light stays either on (solid) or blinking rapidly.

These two cards work fine in other computers. the sound blaster works fine in my HP Pavilion a450n, which is at least four years older than the a1250n. The BIOS is set to default, the internal sound card is on (auto on/off) and works fine (i'm using that as my primary sound right now, by the way.) The sound card itself has no jumpers, but it does have an auxilary input/output and some other wierd plugin. The motherboard has two jumpers, if that helps anyone.

If anybody could help me with this problem, it would be greatly appreciated

[Eg0Death]

What are the specs on your Pavilion?

[patio]

MBoard drivers? ?
Any Yellow ? marks in Device Manager ? ?

[darkrelik]

HP Pavilion a1250n

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600)

System Model: EG194AA-ABA A1250N

BIOS: Phnoenix - Award BIOS v6.00PG

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 60 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+, MMX, 3DNow (2CPUs)

Memory: 1534MB RAM

Directx Version: DirectX9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Power Supply: Earthwatts - 500 watts

There are updates for some of the components. 31 optional updates to be precise, but  i don't want to have pay for a program to update it all.

There are no question marks or exclamation points on any of the components in the device manager.

[patio]

There are updates for some of the components. 31 optional updates to be precise, but  i don't want to have pay for a program to get rid of it.

Not sure what you mean by this...Drivers are Free.

[Broni]

...unless it's some money sucking "driver update miracle scanner".

[darkrelik]

lol yeah that's what it is XD it's "the best and most interactive hardware scanner on the planet!" just like every other one XD

[Broni]

Uninstall!

[darkrelik]

lolz XD i did as soon as i saw i had to register 

so what now? a stick of dynamite or c4?  that'll do it.



lol so here's the thing...My Pavilion a450n is getting old and i'm pressing it beyond its limits...so it's not working exactly like a spring chicken...our local computer store closed down... as for the a1250n, i'd like to know if this problem could be worth all the trouble...my guess is it's a faulty motherboard...the computer does other wierd things, like not reading disks, as if it lost connection to the cd drive...it's also had conflicts with other pieces of hardware i've hooked to it, including USB interface devices. i had a joystick that caused conflicts, a synthesizer keyboard that caused conflicts, the hard drive SOMEHOW got corrupted once, and now this problem. lol is it possibly the motherboard? i've tried the sound card just by itself and the original RAM that came with the computer too, but that didn't work. funny thing is, i have an ATI Radeon x700 Pro video card that works just fine in it. Another serious problem i have with the pc...most times when i turn on the pc, the fans will just rev up as high as they can go and there's no beeps and no nothing...(this is when the pc should run normal.) after this, i have to restart it at least once or twice to get it to boot up normally. By the way, it's been doing that since even before i put in a new power supply.

[patio]

What brand and wattage PSU did you put in there ? ?
Multiple hardware errors almost always point to a flakey/failing PSU...
Borrow a known good one if you have to and swap it in there before assuming the MBoard is bad.

[darkrelik]

Earthwatts: 500w. power supply

[patio]

Earthwatts: 500w. power supply

Not familiar with them.

But if it's an Antec they are usually pretty reliable...

[darkrelik]

yeah it's antec