Unbootable computer--CPU or motherboard prob??

[Mindriot]

Greetings folks. I have an ABit KA7 motherboard with an Athlon 700MHz Slot processor. I am up a creek here because when I turn the system on I get the power supply to turn on and the cpu fans over the chip will spin. The hard drive does not power on or spin up. The screen is blank and the power led and the HDD led remain constantly on. Numerous times I tried shutting the computer off and on but had no change in behavior.

I unplugged the IDE ribbon cable from the motherboard and turned the computer on again. This time the hard drive spun up--but there was still nothing on the screen and there were no BIOS beeps of any kind. I thought it was quite clear that it was either the motherboard or CPU. The problem now is...which one is it? Or maybe there's another problem? I did reseat the processor and nothing changed.

A small observation--the network card would not emit a green light when the computer was turned on and a live CAT5 cable was plugged into it. Maybe the cards on the mobo aren't getting power? The results are giving me no clue as to what's going on and the hard drive behavior mentioned above was very strange. Basically I'm assuming something's fried...question is what needs to be replaced??

P.S. When I try to eject the cd-rom drives it won't do it and none of the lights will light up.

Thanks for your help guys.

[evalroy]

Welcome Mindriot,

Is the CPU a Thunderbird or Classic Athlon processor. I have a KA7 in a computer at home and it only supports a Classic Athlon. This may be the problem.

Good luck,
ER


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I think, therefore I am -What the hell was I thinking?

[diurnal]

Make sure the little connectors to the face of the case is hook up properly. Like hard drive led, power switch. This could be the cause of it not booting correctly, but dont give up yet, i dont think nothing is fried though, did you make sure the fan on the processer was on correctly, and spinning.

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Sledgehammer will save the day!

[Mindriot]

Addition to first comment:

When I said IDE connecter I meant the hard drive ribbon cable in case there were any misunderstandings...thanx

[Mindriot]

The processor is a Classic Athlon...the cpu fans do spin and you can hear the power supply starting up as well. Basically from an observer's prospective, all the computer does is spin the fans and you head the power supply too--then the HDD and Power LEDs stay lit. The hard drive only spins up if its IDE connector is removed from the controller port on the mobo.

I just checked the connectors a little bit ago and they're all plugged in correctly (pwr switch, led's, etc.)...the computer is getting power and the system has been working fine for the past two years. I normally leave it on and I got up in the morning and the computer was in the exact same as I described above and after turning if off and on (unplugging as well) I still got the same results.

[UPENDRA UPADHYAY]

Welcome, Mindriot.
I faced yhis kind of problem, in Mercury 810c motherboard and celeron cpu. In my case Power led and hdd led remain constant but no display on moniter and no beep sound of booting. I remove the RAM clean its conector and it's slot then I restart the computer and it works prperly. Try this it may works in your case.
BEst luck.

[jhc]

i Have this exact problem.
tried removing and cleaning RAM repeatetly and still nothing, any other suggestions.
btw my HDD led stays off, but everything else is as discribed above

[Paleo Pete]

Remove everything and try to boot it as a bare bones system with only CPU, memory, video card and keyboard. Nothing else. If you get no video, pull and reseat both video card and memory and try again. If you still get no video get some cardboard washers from a computer shop and put them under the metal standoffs between the motherboard and chassis and under the screw heads too to be on the safe side. Then try it.

Once you get video as a bare bones system, add one component at a time starting with floppy drive, then hard drive, then CD ROM etc. NIC should be the LAST one you install.

As a parting thought you might just pull the NIC and see if it's causing problems. The LED not working means it has problems to begin with.

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