PC not starting at all

[bball1523]

So I unplugged the cables from the PSU on the motherboard and put them back on and put new thermal grease on the cpu, and now my computer won't start. Nothing works at all.

Does anyone know what could be the problem?

 

[Slugbait]

So I unplugged the cables from the PSU on the motherboard and put them back on and put new thermal grease on the cpu, and now my computer won't start. Nothing works at all.

Does anyone know what could be the problem?

The first possibility, of course, is that not all of the cables were plugged back in. The P4 connector is commonly forgotten.

Re-seating all connectors may resolve the problem.

Also test the power supply, looks like you have an old Antec...it may have blown out, or it may have simply blown its fuse (and hopefully the fuse isn't soldered on to the PSU mainboard).

 

[StrangerGuy]

The Strangerguy's guide to troubleshooting non-POST PCs:

1. Switch off the AC power whenever you fiddling with the insides of a PC(very important!)
2. Disconnect all your drives and expansion cards except graphics
3. Remove all except one stick of RAM
4. Make sure ATX main, ATX12V and all fan headers are connected
5. Switch on the PC. Does it POST and the fans spin? Let's assume it does
6. Connect the stuff you removed earlier piece-by-piece and do step 5 again.
7. End

 

[bball1523]

Thanks for the help everyone!

Ok I found that my power sw cable was not inserted, it fixed the problem. Though now my pc won't boot properly, keeps restarting.

It will start up then around 11 seconds later or so it stops and restarts itself, then does it again.

I tried disconnected the HD, wireless card, CD Drive, and left on 1 stick of RAM, and it still does it.

Does anyone know what the problem might be?

 

[Slugbait]

Yeah, that's likely your processor. It could be due to the grease being incorrectly applied, but it's more likely that your heatsink wasn't correctly mounted...resulting in too much heat being generated, so the hardware shuts down to protect the CPU

 

[herry.james]

Yes that is possible now you could run into problems but those would have to be addressed as the time came to them, make sure when you do this that you are installing windows 7 onto each hard drive and not wiping the one you just installed windows 7 on.

 

[Fayd]

Yes that is possible now you could run into problems but those would have to be addressed as the time came to them, make sure when you do this that you are installing windows 7 onto each hard drive and not wiping the one you just installed windows 7 on.

....wtf?

 

[Fayd]

Thanks for the help everyone!

Ok I found that my power sw cable was not inserted, it fixed the problem. Though now my pc won't boot properly, keeps restarting.

It will start up then around 11 seconds later or so it stops and restarts itself, then does it again.

I tried disconnected the HD, wireless card, CD Drive, and left on 1 stick of RAM, and it still does it.

Does anyone know what the problem might be?

1: reseat processor and clean and reapply thermal paste. before reseating processor, take note of the pins and lands to make sure they're clean. (no errant TIM got on them..)

2: make sure all cables are connected. the one i always miss is the video card power cable. (kinda annoying... i have like 7 years experience at this, and i keep missing that. it's ALWAYS the stupid things.)

3: swap the ram you left in for another stick of ram

4: pull off the front panel connectors, and momentarily bridge the pins for the power switch. this will test whether the power switch is broken. (unlikely...)

 

[bball1523]

hmm, I had tried to clean and reapply thermal paste before I posted that above reply, so it still has problems. Is it possible that I put too much thermal paste or not clean correctly? The HSF is difficult to put on, but I think I managed to put it on, unless it's still incorrectly installed.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Did you try a different stick of ram in another slot?

 

[bball1523]

Did you try a different stick of ram in another slot?

No I haven't. I have two right now in the PC that are 1GB each, and have 2 512mb that I used in my old setup, but don't use right now. Would one 512mb stick work?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Should long as your mobo supports that type of ram. You said you tried it with one stick of ram. Did you try the other stick that wasn't in your computer in a different slot by itself?

 

[Paperlantern]

ON for 11 seconds? Is everything proceeding as normal for those 11 seconds? If its Memory it almost certainly wouldnt restart, it would most certainly either sit on and not do anything, or produce some beeps of some kind. What happens exactly during those 11 seconds? it might be thermal, but thermal events usually trigger shut downs, not restarts. So i dont think its that.

 

[splat_ed]

How far does it get through the boot procedure?

As Paperlantern asked, is it going as normal?

My thought was actually, maybe some setting in the BIOS is dodgy... I don't know what setting could possibly do this. Do you have your monitor plugged in and does anything come up on screen (I.e POST screens etc.) This might give us a bit more of a clue as to where it gets to.

Sorry it's not much help but maybe someone else can expound further (or shoot this down...)

 

[Slugbait]

...thermal events usually trigger shut downs, not restarts. So i dont think its that.

Last summer, my MCE 2K5 machine was going BSOD and restarting...not shutting down. Four years of dust build-up caked my heatsink...

So yeah, depends on how the BIOS is set up, but otherwise, the system will usually restart.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I doubt it would be getting hot enough in 11 secs to restart itself. If the heatsink was in the general area it would be enough to get to windows. It sounds like he might of damaged something while resetting his heatsink. I would disconnect everything including front panel stuff and try and get it to boot. He might of messed up his mobo though. You have to be careful with motherboards.

 

[Paperlantern]

Last summer, my MCE 2K5 machine was going BSOD and restarting...not shutting down. Four years of dust build-up caked my heatsink...

So yeah, depends on how the BIOS is set up, but otherwise, the system will usually restart.

If your machine was BSODing it means your video card probably overheated and stopped responding, not your cpu, windows BSODed and rebooted. Thats a PREFERENCE, not a BIOS level thermal event. Board level CPU overheat protection is ALWAYS a hard shutdown, the system WILL NOT restart on a cpu thermal event... ever. It wouldnt make sense to continue running current through a part of the computer that is dangerously hot.

Your BSOD rebooted the computer because you told it to, there is a checkmark you can clear in the system properties that would allow the BSOD to remain on the screen for troubleshooting purposes, more than likely it was a video driver issue, or perhaps another part of the board that wreaked havoc in windows itself, creating a blue screen.

 

[Slugbait]

If your machine was BSODing it means your video card probably overheated and stopped responding, not your cpu, windows BSODed and rebooted. ...more than likely it was a video driver issue, or perhaps another part of the board that wreaked havoc in windows itself, creating a blue screen.

You have zero clue what you are talking about. I actually took a couple of pictures of the heatsink with the fan removed, because the amount of dust was so fraking impressive. And it's not a stock Intel, it's a copper Thermaltake TR2-M12. Once I vacuumed it out, the system went perfect on me...I didn't do a damn thing with the video card, drivers, or anything else. I just put it back into daily recording service...it's been running 24/7 with no blue screens since (did a lovely ghetto dust filter system, too).

 

[JM Aggie08]

If your machine was BSODing it means your video card probably overheated and stopped responding, not your cpu, windows BSODed and rebooted. Thats a PREFERENCE, not a BIOS level thermal event. Board level CPU overheat protection is ALWAYS a hard shutdown, the system WILL NOT restart on a cpu thermal event... ever. It wouldnt make sense to continue running current through a part of the computer that is dangerously hot.

Your BSOD rebooted the computer because you told it to, there is a checkmark you can clear in the system properties that would allow the BSOD to remain on the screen for troubleshooting purposes, more than likely it was a video driver issue, or perhaps another part of the board that wreaked havoc in windows itself, creating a blue screen.

wat?

 

[imported_NoGodForMe]

I have a similar issue with an old 939 gaming machine I've given up on. I've run memtest and the memory is good. When the system boots into windows (XP), I get a BSOD. I boot in safe mode, and it's right at the last driver (AGP). I've since found that when windows is done loading all drivers, it needs more power, and that's when it's activating things like the USB devices. Any one of those can cause a BSOD. So it's not the last driver you see in safe mode that is causing the lock up, but immediately after the last driver. I've swapped everything, even tried formatting a different hard drive and it still locks up.

So you (the OP) may be in the same boat as me, because I even bought a used MB for $50 and had the exact same problem. I have swapped everything and don't have an answer, other than to build the new rig which I need to do anyway.

 

[bball1523]

I know this is late, but I found out the problem. It was one bad stick of ram. My desktop works now with 1 stick of ram.

Thanks for all the help!