The worst that could happen on Christmas

[frankyvc]

Hello,

Let me please explain my problem.

Some two weeks ago I assembled a pc as a Christmas present for my son.
(see specs below).
Everything went fine and the sytem ran smoothly for about 12 h in which time I set up the bios and installed the os (windows XP pro).
After this the system went back in the box till this morning,(25 Dec.)
Everything went fine again and booted up nicely. Then I plugged in an external freecom HD on the front USB. Windows recognises hardware and says raedy to use.
I open the files on this drive to copy some programs onto the internal HD.
This seems to take a long time and no copying window shows up either.
I try copy and paste again, and again nothing seems to happen.
Then I type ctrl/alt/del to see whats happening in the taskmanager.
At this moment the system is not responding anymore and the screen is frozen.
I then chose to reboot the system, which it doesn't do anymore since than.

I keep getting a black screen that says "no signal".
I hear no beeps at all on startup.
I do hear the HD and drives wissh though.
The screen is ok.
I changed the videocard and still same.
I took out and put back the memory and videocard several times.
I tried with only one memory module and I tried them in different slots.
I took out battery and reset CMOS.
I tried complete barebones boot.
I took out the CPU and put it back.
I checked all jumper settings and they are all default.
I checked all wire conections.
There are no items that seem to be exceptionally hot.
(Two weeks ago the CPU temp stayed around 38 celcius the whole time).
All of the above to no avail.

Can you imagine the disappointment of my son when his eagerly awaited present didn,t work.
Is there anyone here who can help me solve this, or at least identify wich item to replace if necesary?

A desperate father.
Many thanks

FVC

PS I know a few things about pc's but do consider myself a novice at assembling them.


System specs:

Sumvision Optical Mouse PS2 - Black
52X LG CD-ROM Drive
HD 120GB Maxtor DiamondMAX+9 133/7200 (partioned in 2 pieces 7 and 112 GB)
Memory Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 400MHz Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) 184pin DIMM's (Kit of 2 x 512mb)
Mobo Asus P4P800SE S478 I865pe ATX Sound GLAN USB 2.0 FSB800 SATA100
Video card Asus Fx5200 V9520 Magic T/P AGPx8 128MB DDR TV-Out
PCU Intel Celeron® D 335 2.8GHz SKT478 FSB533 256kb Cache
Kingcase Black PS2 Multimedia Keyboard
ATX case Raidmax Cobra 822 Wb 400w Case

[Paul Komski]

Double check the connection to the monitor and also if you can try swapping the monitor with one on another working system.

I hear no beeps at all on startup.
That sounds like a failure to POST so can you be sure ? that it used to beep once either during boot-up or during the first boot-up following a clearing of the CMOS.

Have you tried disconnecting all IDE/ATAPI cables and then tried simply booting to a boot floppy diskette.

A barebones boot with the mobo on cardboard would also be high on the agenda to see if you can get the PC to POST. If good then add components one at a time. If no barebones POST then consider bad mobo and/or cpu.

[frankyvc]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I tried to boot with only video, memory and speaker connected and the mobo on a cardboard and the result is the same: nothing at all, no beeps
I connected the floppy and put in the 1 of my set of boot disks and this time the floppy did not even come on.

I tried the screen and the cable on another system before and they work perfect.

Just a thought, could this be related to the PSU?

It also didn't beep after I cleared the CMOS.

Thanks in advance for your help.

FVC

[frankyvc]

I forgot to say, I also noticed that I can't reset the board anymore with the reset switch.

Cheers

[Paul Komski]

Just a thought, could this be related to the PSU?
Yes - it could be faulty though there is obviously not a total failure since you can hear the drives spin up.

[frankyvc]

I tried a working PSU from another pc today and the result is still no boot.

Any more suggestions?

Thanks

FVC