Computer won't boot after attempted upgrade

Joseph

Hi all,

I bought 4 gigs new ram and a HDD quieter (one of those rubber things that goes onto the side of the HDD). Basically whats happened is that after I installed the new ram and added the HDD thing the computer now won't boot.

It turns on and sometimes gets to windows boot but mostly it will shut off during bios boot. I have seen the warning msg about cpu speed or something but it only comes up sometimes when trying to boot.

Googling it with the result that it is probably the CPU overheating but it has been fine for 3 years so obviously it has to do with something I did when upgrading.

I've taken out the 4 gig ram and tried it with just the original 2 gig - got as far as bios boot and shuts off.

I've tried taking out all the HDDs and still has no effect, I've tried trying only 1 thing of RAM - no effect

It's either PSU or CPU or motherboard but I've no idea what to do, what could I have done that would have ****ed it up? I thought it might have been somethign really simple like a power cable i forgot to reattach but ive double checked everything, im at my wits end

thanks

yoyo

Could you have accidently loostened the CPUs heatsink clips or even accidently remove the CPU heatsinks fan connector?

Nick

BrokenArrows

when its booting does it do any beeping. if it does make a note of the sequence.

do a search in google for beep codes for your mothboard type. it will give you a description of what each beep sequence means.

Joseph

Found the problem, amagazingly it was the CPU, I managed to get into the BIOs before a shutdown and it was 75 C..89..95..115..120 - shutdown

So I took the fan off and applied some thermal compound and that has sorted it for the moment at least, I've ordered a new heatsink

Joseph

Alright so this problem has developed quite seriously. I bought the new heatsink ( thermaltake ). It was quite big so I was worried whether or not it would fit, it did, barely.

Cleaned the CPU of the old thermal compound and applied new, setup the heatsink all went fine.

Wouldn't boot, thought it might have been the extra IDE HDD I installed to test (ran out of SATA slots). Took it out and no, nothing. It's a black screen with no HDD lights, it does not auto shutdown it just runs, all the motherboard lights are on, and all the fans are spinning but nothing is happing.

Took out all the ram bar one, and all non essential extra hardware, nothing.

Removed the heat sink and took out the CPU, saw a little brown spec on the pins so used an air duster to gently blow it off, that did the trick I was able to boot - booted into the bios and checked the CPU temp, a nice 38 C - great.

So put all the hardware back together and wont boot again, I've tried every possible combination and every possible solution to no avail.

-Cleaned the PC
-Looked at the CPU
-Changed over ram
-Disconnected HDDS
-Checked for any possible motherboard short curuits

Nothing I do will allow me to boot, I am thinking somehow I have fried the chip (although, I was grounded the ENTIRE time I was working on the PC via an anti static band) and also that it did boot that one time during the checks, so maybe it isnt the CPU.

If anyone has any clue or suggestion I am desperate, I have projects and work deadlines coming soon and this is probably the worst time this could have happened.

System Specs:
Gainward GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3,
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket
EVGA nForce 680i LT SLI, Socket-775,

Joseph

Still won't boot I've taken a look at the CPU and nothing seems fried or out of place, and all the pins seem ok on the motherboard

I also used a tester to see how much power the case was getting, and it seems ok it's not shorting out anyway

Virgil°

All the fans etc are spinning and the computer sounds like its running?
Do you get any video output at all?
Try unplug you computer completely from the wall and hold on your power button for about 2 minutes. Sorted my rig with similar symptoms.

leninbenjamin

Virgil° wrote: »

All the fans etc are spinning and the computer sounds like its running?
Do you get any video output at all?
Try unplug you computer completely from the wall and hold on your power button for about 2 minutes. Sorted my rig with similar symptoms.

possibly a stupid question, but why would that sort anything?

Virgil°

leninbenjamin wrote: »

possibly a stupid question, but why would that sort anything?

Through all the problems my rig has given me over the years i don't actually remember the reasoning behind this procedure.
And im not fussed trawling forums for it again.
But my pc had similar symptoms, fans spinning, all cards turning on, mobo lights on. But nothing, no video output, no bootup. It was just sitting there idle, much like the OP described.
Might not work in this case but it did the trick for me.

Joseph

Tried reseting the CMOS, nothing.

Tried your suggestion (thanks btw) but nothing coming up till

There is no video output, and there is no onboard video so I can't try that though I don't think its the video card

Joseph

So I took the motherboard out of the case with fan, cpu, ram, and gfx attached, put it on the floor on some card and it booted fine perfect no problem. Put it back in the case and won't boot again - it has to be a short circuit but I can't see anywhere where there is metal touching the case?

StopNotWorking

Check all the screws that hold the MoBo down, are any of them in a hole thats not covered in a silver compound?(It should look like flux).

Joseph

just tried that , and while it was out ot the case i tried starting it up again to no avail, though this time it did have the new heatsink on it...

but the other time i took it out of the case with the stock fan on, it turned on and ran fine - so i put hte new one on to test it and it worked fine

Joseph

Problem is fixed, if you asked me how I would be baffled to explain - no fcuking clue how it started to work again - though it is using the stock fan... meh who cares its working