Very Wierd motherboard problem O_o

Joe33345

Solid State Member
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Hey! I'm new to the forums. A friend referred me here because he thought that you guys could help me out :)

Now heres the problem, 1st specs

A8AE-LE Motherboard <-- go to HP's website and type out SR1710NX for full description of the PC if you want

2GB DDR400 RAM (2x1GB Dual Channel)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
1 SATA HD and 1 IDE HD, IDE is hooked up as 1st Slave and SATA as 3rd Master. SATA is primary and thats how I have it set up. thats not the problem :p

Realtek AC97 Onboard Audio

400W PSU Antec

Running off of Windows XP and Windows Vista Dual Boot (cant stand vista without XP too :) )

I am running on onboard video right now because of this issue

A while back for some reason my motherboard refused to start up one day... so I decided to clean a few things like the CPU and GPU heatsinks (EVGA Geforce 7900 GT). air sprayed them out and cleaned the fans, no problems there. Now when I went to put the video card back in I accidentally hit off one of those black caps. I put it in and of course it wouldn't run. I thought the video card was broke... and the warranty wasn't valid anymore so I tossed it. I put on onboard video and the PC is running okay on it but for some reason now... If I shut off the PC for an overnight shutdown... it takes several power on/offs for the PC to even hit the boot screen again. I figured it was the motherboard so I decided to just leave it on for now on and overnight I'll just leave it in a power saving mode.

Now one of my friends sent me his ATi Radeon X1300 Pro, its PCI-Express and it doesn't require a PCI-Express power cord o_O. I shut down my PC, put the card in and turned it on... PC wouldn't boot no matter how many times I tried turning it off and on like usual... I thought maybe if I flashed the bios it might help it. I was running off of Rev 3.13 which I heard was horrible so I updated it to 3.14... no help but my PC is running cooler lol. Now my problem is this... I thought it was a motherboard problem and I would need to replace the motherboard... but I saw on another forum a guy with the same problem as me but they are telling him that it is his PSU and for him to get a new one.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/har...89782-pc-doesnt-boot-but-does-give-power.html <-- I posted on this thread too to see their insight of the issue.

Now I just want to know if its a PSU issue or a Motherboard issue. I've reseated everything in the case, checked all wires and everything is plugged in all the way. It just really perplexes me and I'm lost. If you have any ideas that would be nice to share. Thanks for reading this long one too XD

Joe

EDIT: sorry I also wanted to explain that the motherboard problem was happening before the 7900 GT broke
 
Hi Joe, and welcome to the forum.

Your psu should be OK to run those devices, what else do you have in the case ? i.e. anything that is connected to the 12v rail(s)

I wouldn't have thought the X1300 used more power than the 7900GT so I don't think it is your problem, but you never know.

Lets rule a few things out, you say it wouldn't boot then next sentence you say you flashed the bios, do we assume that you removed the X1300 and used the onboard to get the pc to boot so you could flash the bios?

Now most boards automatically disable the onboard video when an expansion card is inserted but being a proprietry board there is a possibility that you may need to do this manually in the bios, have you investigated that avenue?
 
sorry I forgot about that. when I flashed it, yes I did remove the card and put in onboard to flash it. I also did go into the motherboards settings and check out which video card type I should set to default. I set PCI-Express and the video card still wouldn't start. then I pulled it out, plugged in onboard, and after several power on/offs again it came on. also I forgot to say that I reset the CMOS with no success too

EDIT: all items in the case are as follows.

the 2 Hard Drives in my 1st post,

1 DVD/CD-RW drive
1 DVD+RW Drive

umm i removed the PCI cards way before this happened so their not included. it was only a 56k card anyway.

the Processor, and 1 Fan on the processor and thats all. pretty cool too for only 1 fan, no back fans or any of that.
 
Can you explain this a little more please? any chance you've damaged the PCI-e slot during this incident?

Now when I went to put the video card back in I accidentally hit off one of those black caps.
 
OK, mmmmm well I would be testing the 12v rail(s) with a multimeter to check the output is 12v or really close to it to rule out the psu, the fact the pc powers up without the card in there would suggest to me that the psu could be faulty. Can you test the X1300 in another pc to rule out the possibility it is the problem?

If both of those avenues turn up no tangable result you may have to look into rma for the board.

EDIT: Just for kicks try to boot with only the primary hard drive connected to the psu, remove the roms from the equation, if the psu is marginal that should release enough power for it to boot.
 
well hey I did test it out and my friend is also into computers full time. he says it had something to do with my cooling of the system... 1 fan for the CPU and thats all XD

he said it made my PSU mess up because of heat, sent a shock down to the PCI-Express slot and messed up the video card and the motherboard, so its both of em. So I've decided to just go ahead and update my system.

I was looking at some nice ATX items, case, fans, and a real cooling solution, my friend quoted this to me saying this is definately a nice cooling solution here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103011

the system comes with 2 250mm fans on the side. then it has an open slot for another 120mm fan on the back and im gonna buy that seperate. it has like a Blue LED setup so I was gonna go with that :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811998121

then I was gonna go with this 600w power supply from Ultra. SLI Ready and SATA so itll be good for me :)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2974309&CatId=106

then ONLY AS A TEMPORARY SOLUTION WITH THE PARTS I HAVE I am gonna get this motherboard because its compatible with my current parts. then in the future when I have more money just go and get a new ATX board and upgrade to something better with SLI :)

thx for your help and your solutions, they did help me out :D
 
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