COnfused1

Ok I built myself a pc more than 5 years ago and have stopped using it a couple years back. I just wanted to start it up again and let my sister use it because this would be better than what she is currently using. Now, I don't remember tampering with any of the hardware, but when I go to boot it up, the fans and lights come on for like 3 seconds then everything just powers back off. I have two sticks of ram and tried them one at a time to make sure they werent the problem but even then I thought it would at least give a beep of some kind. Nothing shows up on the monitor. I have two harddrives available and it does the same thing to both. How can I tell if something is defected?

Partizan

Try running without any memory. If the mainboard doesn't start beeping, then I guess the motherboard is toast. Did you check the capacitors? Check the CPU and PSU also, but I think the main problem is the motherboard, because I had almost identical problem a few days ago.

__________________

COnfused1

Hmm I did as you said and it gives a long 5sec beep then turns off.

Partizan

What model is it?

Also, if you can, try with different memory and graphic card.

__________________

COnfused1

asus a7n8x

i dont have any other sticks of memory or video card that would fit it

GigaWatt

well, the main problem seems to be resolved, since the mother board beeped, it seems that the mother board is OK, but then there is the GPU and the memory issue... if you have 2 or 3 DIMMs attached to the mother board, then try only by using one at a time, and try to put them on the first DIMM slot, if that doesn't seem to do the job, you could try changing graphic cards, or borrow one from a firiend (since you claim you don't have one at hand... ). other than that, you could always try changing the mother board and using the same parts from the current one, see of they are OK, and then blame it on the current board...

sometimes motherboards have bad cooper pins mounted on them, so after a while (in your case, 5 years ), they tend to get a little layer of oxide on the pins, which of course reduces the ammount of conductivity between the parts... so the problem could (in some way) also be machanical... ... try changing the arangemets of the DIMM modules, and dont push in the graphic card and the DIMM modules very had into the mother board's slots, try putting them in jently... maybe even not all the way in, or moving them around in the slot... that might work too...

__________________
It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

Al_Vampyre

If you really haven't used it in that length of time it's possible that the CMOS battery is dead so the board can't load the BIOS.

GigaWatt

yeah, i forgot about that.. . it's a possibility... if that is the case, just leave the power plug plugged in the PSU for a while, 2-3 hours should do it, so that the battery could recharge. then try powering the rig up and see what happens...

__________________
It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

COnfused1

I finally found time to mess with this thing again and I checked the video card as I powered the PC on and found that it did not come on, or at least the fan on it didn't. How can I check if the card itself is bad or if maybe it is not getting power from the motherboard?

How likely would that be if the motherboard isn't supplying it power through the agp slot?

Partizan

It's possible that the AGP port is bust. I came across few such boards.

__________________

COnfused1

The other PC I have uses pci-e :\ Things always have to be so complicated

GigaWatt

try booting up the mother board with another AGP slot based GFX card... see if that works...

__________________
It's not schisophrenia... it's just a voice in my head...

Tipstaff

Just out of curiosity, have you taken off the CPU cooler, and made sure that the CPU is seated in it's socket?

Beep aside, usually when you boot a computer up, and there is nothing.. no beeps, nothing, it's usually due to one of 2 things: insufficient power (meaning bad PSU), or the board doesn't recognize a CPU (meaning it's dead, the board is dead-ish, or it is not seated completely in the socket). This happens over time way more often than people realize, and is one of the reasons why Intel switched to a system in which the retention mechanism holds the top of the CPU in place rather than just relying on the socket to hold onto the pins. My advice would be to remove the CPU cooler, reseat the CPU, put the cooler back on (don't worry about putting new thermal paste at this point), and fire the system up again.

Oh, on the subject of the video card, if the board doesn't have an onboard video card the board will tell you off if there is no video card inserted in the AGP slot, usually with 1 long beep, and 2 short beeps. If you remove the video card, then try to fire the system up it should do that. If it doesn't then you are looking at something else being wrong with the system.

__________________

COnfused1

Switched out the PSU with a known working one and also reinstalled the cpu and still the same results. I'm about to give up on this thing