Need a PC Doctor. STAT!

[Nebu]

My PC died last night.  I replaced the power supply as I needed to upgrade from the 450W that I was currently using anyway.  The new power supply couldn't bring me back to life. 

Symptons: System won't power up.  I do notice a green light on the mobo when I turn the switch of the power supply to the "ON" position, but pushing the power up button has no effect. 

Is my mobo dead?  I've been considering a mobo/cpu/memory upgrade anyway, but I'd hate to spend the cash if I don't have to as I'm trying to close on a new house.  THIS IS THE COMBO I'd likely upgrade to. 

Thanks for any input.  I'll do my best to answer questions.

[Engels]

Ya, sounds like a fried board. Unless you have a spare CPU lying around and the patience to swap it out to test the off chance that its your CPU that died, I'm thinking upgrade time. But even then, I think that if your mobo is fine and you put in a bad cpu, modern mobos will screetch at you.

[bhodi]

check the wires leading from the power on button to the motherboard, confirm they are connected properly. You may have forgotten to plug them back in. Also, check for both power connectors, both the wide (24 pin?) one and the narrow one (either 4 or 6? 8? pin). Also, if your motherboard has no obvious 4 or 6 pin connector, you may plug the smaller one into the larger port on the MB. You'll have to check the instructions. Those symptoms can either be due to your power switch not being connected, the smaller of the two PS->MB connectors not being connected, or damaged parts.

Another silly thing, make sure your PS is set correctly to either 110 or 220 via the switch in the back.

[Nebu]

This is a box that I built 2 years ago and it was dead the morning after a storm.  I'm wondering if a power surge killed it.  I'll check to ensure that the connection from the power switch to the mobo is good.  The power supply is set to 110 and I have the 6 pin and 24 pin plugs connected.

Great suggestions so far.  Thank you!

[Kageh]

Are any fans spinning up? Do you get speaker beeps? If everything is dead and you have all power connectors in place on mobo, then it's most likely the mobo itself.

Was the computer turned on during the storm? Kind of strange if it died while being turned off.

[ghost]

I had almost the exact same thing happen-  MB was fucked.

[Nebu]

Was the computer turned on during the storm? Kind of strange if it died while being turned off.

It was on.  This is why I guessed it may be the mobo, but started with the power supply as I wanted something beefier for future upgrades.  

[Nebu]

I had almost the exact same thing happen-  MB was fucked.

Ok.  What do you folks think of my upgrade choice?  Any suggestions for memory? I tend to be partial to corsair, but I'm open. 

[bhodi]

I generally just go with whatever newegg has on specials. Things are so homogeneous these days it really doesn't matter unless you are on the bleeding edge.

[schild]

When that happened to me recently, it was my power supply. Heh. But there was smoke coming out of it.

[Lantyssa]

If you have multiple memory sticks, try only using one at a time.  Also if you have a spare video card try using it instead (an old PCI in a PCI slot if necessary).

The motherboard likely took the hit, but it's possible it was just a component.

[Hoax]

If you have multiple memory sticks, try only using one at a time.  Also if you have a spare video card try using it instead (an old PCI in a PCI slot if necessary).

The motherboard likely took the hit, but it's possible it was just a component.

This + everything else people have mentioned.  The any noise any fans question is a crucial one as is double checking that everything is plugged in.  Esp the power switch itself since I've seen those little colored fuckers end up in the wrong place several times.

re: Ram, as far as I'm concerned Corsair is still the best.  People who are OMG bang for buck fanatics will say you can get away with G.Skill and some others.  That mobo worries me, I hope you've read some great reviews somewhere trustworthy.  When I was looking at x58 boards for an i7 build it was ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and EVGA all the way which is pretty much what I'm used to being recommended don't know anything about that brand which doesn't say much but still.

[Nebu]

Spent yesterday reconnecting things.  I'm still thinking it's the mobo, but the green light being on (on the mobo itself) is puzzling me.  It seems a sign that the Mobo is getting power from the supply, but isn't distributing the power anywhere.  I hear no sounds, no fan action, nothing.  Depressing the power button causes no change as well. 

At this point I may just use this as an excuse to upgrade my mobo, cpu and memory.  I have a new power supply, video card, and HD that I've purchased in the last few months and it would make sense to upgrade the rest regardless.

Thanks for the input.  I think I'm going to go i5 on the cpu.  Seems to be in a sweet spot. 

[jth]

Spent yesterday reconnecting things.  I'm still thinking it's the mobo, but the green light being on (on the mobo itself) is puzzling me.  It seems a sign that the Mobo is getting power from the supply, but isn't distributing the power anywhere.  I hear no sounds, no fan action, nothing.  Depressing the power button causes no change as well. 

It's usually just an indicator that the board is connected to power. Almost everything on the board can still be dead.

[Viin]

Thanks for the input.  I think I'm going to go i5 on the cpu.  Seems to be in a sweet spot.  

I picked up an i5 + mobo combo on Newegg for just under $300, hope to get it tomorrow and installed by the weekend!

The combo deals will save you $10-$30, so look for those if you want to stay on the lower end for an i5 upgrade.

[Nebu]

I picked up an i5 + mobo combo on Newegg for just under $300, hope to get it tomorrow and installed by the weekend!

The combo deals will save you $10-$30, so look for those if you want to stay on the lower end for an i5 upgrade.

That's exactly what I plan to do.  This is also giving me a reason to get a SATA HD and upgrade my IDE dinosaur. 

[Sheepherder]

It's usually just an indicator that the board is connected to power. Almost everything on the board can still be dead.

On a completely unrelated note: if you have a Dell, check your manual if you ever want to replace the PSU.  It may look like a standard 20/24 pin harness, but check the voltages and arrangement of pins.  Just for no reason at all.

[Nebu]

Ok, my mobo is fried.  Now I have a new problem.  I want to keep the data from my HD, but it turns out that it's an IDE drive (ribbon connector, etc).  How can I transfer the data from this HD to my new comp if I build it with a sata drive?  Do I have to find an old desktop that has an IDE mobo and install it as a slave to extract the data?  That would suck. 

[Ingmar]

You could just get a little external IDE/usb enclosure and plug it in to your next machine externally. They're pretty cheap.

[Prospero]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q4Z5KY

9 bucks to be precise.

[caladein]

I'd be surprised if your new motherboard doesn't have at least one IDE/PATA connector.  Maybe they phased them out completely in the past year since I built my system?

[Nebu]

Thanks guys.  I knew I could count on you.

[ghost]

My new MB has no IDE support.  Whatever cheap solution you could get to just transfer stuff over would obviously be ideal.  Do you have another computer that you could plug your IDE into and transfer stuff to an external drive?

[MuffinMan]

I think I'll piggyback on this thread for help since I am at my wit's end here. A few days ago I turned on my computer and my monitor resolution reverted to 1024x768 for some reason and on a 22" monitor it is giving me a brain tumor. I was running 1680x1050 before and there were a ton of resolutions on the slider now there are 3, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1680x2074  No combination of reinstalling drivers, removing the card and reinserting has worked. I've even tried adding custom resolutions in the Nvidia control panel, with Powerstrip and rivatuner but nothing works. Has anyone ever heard of this happening before?

[Trippy]

What's the monitor and did you try reinstalling the INF file for it? And what type of connection are you using to connect the two?

[Engels]

I've seen it happen before. I know this sounds lame, but have you tried unplugging and replugging in your monitor? If that doesn't work, do what Trippy says and try to find the monitor's .inf file on the internets. Otherwise, you can probably get away with picking a monitor from the list that's a 20-22 inch widescreen.

[MuffinMan]

It is a Westinghouse L2270NW and I'm using DVI, no adapters. I wasn't aware monitors had .inf's/drivers or anything anymore.

Yea I've tried uninstalling the drivers for the card and physically removing and reinserting the card with the cable removed. Even let Windows boot through with no card to try and clear everything out.

[Trippy]

What OS are you running and did you recently upgrade your video drivers? Have you tried downgrading your drivers like in this post?:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/652-63-window-monitor-1680x1050-1920x1080-resolution-here

[MuffinMan]

I'm running XP Home. No I hadn't got any new drivers since July or something, this just happened at random. I installed the new November drivers after it happened and have also tried drivers from 2007 that Windows Update gives me and I get the same 3 resolutions. Went to that link to try that Powerstrip fix but now it's telling me trial has expired even though I just installed it.

[MuffinMan]

Update to my problem here. Yesterday, I cleared CMOS, reinstalled Windows, drivers and still got the same resolutions, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1680x2074. Today I went out and bought a couple crappy video cards from Best Buy and Fry's, a GeForce 210 and a Radeon 4550 but I get a different problem with both of them. They both boot to Windows just fine by DVI but nothing ever comes on screen, not even the startup post. I pulled out my VGA cable and connected them that way since they have DVI and VGA and VOILA everything is great, my old plethora of resolutions. Reinstall my old 8800GTS, it has 2 DVI ports so I used an adapter to connect it to the VGA port on my monitor and again, everything works great but it's VGA, not DVI.

Now I've come to the conclusion... fuck I have no idea. Does the problem lie in the DVI port on my monitor?

[Engels]

Hmm, this is totally going on a vague memory of mine, so don't investigate too much this way, but an older monitor of mine had some switches or toggles to DVI 'mode'. I had DVI mode set wrong on the monitor settings and had similar if not identical resolution problems. Does this ring a bell to anyone else?

[MuffinMan]

On the actual monitor controls or through software? This is really werid that I get 20 different resolutions using a VGA cable and a VGA>DVI adaper but as soon as I connect it straight with the DVI cable I go back down to 3 resolutions. At this point it's just annoying more than anything, I don't really notice any kind of an image quality difference.

[lac]

I don't really notice any kind of an image quality difference.

Is there any noticeable quality difference between dvi->dvi and dvi->vga converter->vga anyway?

[MuffinMan]

Not that I can see, at least on a 22" monitor. I think the main thing is that DVI is digital and VGA is analog and has more to do with digital content protection than image/video quality. I think too with a DVI connection your display can tell the device what it is and the resolutions it can display.

That or I'm talking out of my ass which is probably more likely.

[Engels]

On the actual monitor controls or through software?

On the monitor controls themselves. If my half-heimers isn't acting up again, it happened with my 20" widescreen NEC. I fussed and fussed, found the .inf files for it, but that didn't help at the time either. It was me finally finding either a factory-reset button on the monitor, or some hidden setting that I accidentally clicked on somewhere or something. As I said, don't waste too much time on this end of things if nothing in the on-screen monitor controls seems to related.