Desktop PC will not Run or Boot

[rjg426]

Hi, I'm new here and need some help. I have an IBM Netvista PC that was top-of-the-line when we bought it 6 years ago. Now it won't run.

When it is turned on, the power light at the CPU front goes on, the keyboard and CD drive flash (CD drive can be opened and closed) the hard drive spins, but that's it. Normally, the hard disk light on the CPU front panel flashes when it boots up, but it stays off. Nothing is displayed on the monitor, and there are no beeps.

The power supply fan is on, and I checked the voltages at the connector pins. The 5V and 3.3V were right on but the 12V was a little low (I don't remember exactly, should have recorded it, something like 11.3V).

I tried clearing the CMOS by removing the battery for a few minutes, but that did not help.

I tried swapping the memory modules, and also tried removing the extra memory I had added last year, but that did not help.

I am at a loss now on what to do. Is there anything else I can check? I'm no PC expert (I checked the above from reading internet advice), but I'm pretty handy when working with instruction and have a good knowledge of PCs.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[PrntRhd]

Does it complete POST (Power On Self Test)? This is usually indicated with a small beep when it completes.

Download Sylvander's charts:
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24421

[Sylvander]

1. "the keyboard and CD drive flash...Nothing is displayed on the monitor, and there are no beeps"
Seems to indicate that the POST has started, and is communicating with the hardware, but POST doesn't reach the advanced stage of sounding the single short beep [immediately before or after initializing the video card].
Might be the the initialization of the video card is failing, and therefore POST halts with no beeps.

OR...
2. "Normally, the hard disk light on the CPU front panel flashes when it boots up, but it stays off"
Would you normally see that HDD [controller] LED blinking or lit prior to the single short beep?
Try disconnecting the HDD, and see if POST gets to the beep, you get a display, and then the BIOS attempts to find a bootable drive.
If it does, try booting some/any bootable disk [floppy or optical, but not faulty HDD].

[awaj]

PrntRhd, thanks for the link to that, I may need that info later.

Are your certain your monitor is good? Check connections

[PrntRhd]

Awaj, It is linking the sticky at the top of the hardware forum.
:)

Sylvander's advice is closer to the point.

[rjg426]

Thanks for the comments and links. I tried a few more things and some observations, but still don't know what else to do.

The problem was that the computer powers on to a certain point, then nothing happens (details in first post).

There are no beep codes. Now I've tried unplugging the memory and I do get a short beep sequence: 1-3-3-1. When I plug the memory back in, there are no beeps. So I'm assuming it's at least getting to the point of checking the memory, and it's OK?

I disconnected the HDD and there were no beeps. I'm thinking that it hasn't gotten to the point of checking for the HDD? I can feel the drive spinning.

When it starts up, it does not get to the point of flashing the light of the floppy drive. When this computer boots, I don't think I usually get a POST complete beep, but while booting I usually see the floppy drive light flash along with 2 "hum" noises ("hum"..."hum", for lack of a better description... not a beep).

I noticed while trying to power up the computer that the fan on the video card was not on. I removed and cleaned lots of dust in the fan and reseated the card a few times, but the fan doesn't come on. Maybe it is thermostatically controlled? It also seemed to have more resistance to manually turning that I would think. Maybe the video card is bad? Should there be POST beeps if it's bad? If it means anything, it's a NVIDIA P85.

Sorry for the long post; thanks for any advice.

[salcha00]

What I would do is to disconnect the CD/DVD drive or Floppy from the motherboard and power supply. A quick guess is your motherboard is bad or the CPU. If you need some more help come to PC Repair (hxxp://wwwhobbyistparadisecom) for some more help.

[PrntRhd]

Strip it to barebones, I suspect the PSU.

[Sylvander]

1. "Maybe the video card is bad? Should there be POST beeps if it's bad?"
That gets my vote.
The beeps you get when you removed the RAM tells us:
The POST is getting as far as the 1st RAM test and generating beeps at the failure of the 1st RAM test.
The RAM tests come immediately prior to the initialization of the video card.
I'd guess that video card initialization is failing, and generally there are no beeps generated at a failure to initialize the video card.
Perhaps a faulty PSU is causing the video card initialization to fail.
Perhaps the faulty PSU FAN is dragging down the PSU supply voltages.
I've had a faulty [noisy] CPU fan do that and cause failure to complete the POST.

[rjg426]

I just wanted to post a reply to follow up on this and close it out. It was the video card! Actually, probably the AGP slot. I found out that Best Buy does a free diag check, so I brought the tower there and we switched the video card with 2 others he had laying around, into the AGP slot. Still didn't work. Then we put in a PCI card he had and it worked. So unless the 2 AGP cards he had were bad like mine, it was probably the AGP slot.

Anyway, I bought a new PCI card and it's been working fine. Thanks for the help.

[Sylvander]

Nice to hear your PC is up and running. :)