Hi,

My system just completely died and I think it was caused by the video card, but any other advice would be helpful. My specs are:

AMD Athlon XP 2000 Processor
Lex BN790E Motherboard
Creative Blaster 4 Ti 4200 Graphics Card
20GB Master Harddrive
40GB Slave Harddrive
300W PSU

I installed the video card, processor and motherboard 5 months ago. About 1 month later I started hearing some rather strange noises coming from the PC, but couldn't work out what it was. I thought the bearings had gone in my CPU fan, so replaced that and the noises stopped. Recently my PC started locking up, freezing and sometimes re-booting. On checking found out that my graphics card fan wasn't spinning. I gave it a tap and it started and the noises started too, so I determined that when the noises had stopped, about 4 months previously, so had my graphics card fan and I'd been running the PC without it. Anyway, I took the fan out and cleaned the dust off it and re-installed it. The PC booted up fine, but while I was trying to upgrade to Windows XP it shutdown and now won't power up at all. The initial green light on the case comes on, but when you press the power button it shuts off completley.

I think the graphics card must be dead anyway, but even with it reomoved the PC still won't power up. Could it have caused a short circuit in the motherboard maybe?

thanks,

Matt

The computer is not going to boot without a video card.
Try booting "barebones". If it still won't boot, I would say its probably the video card(From your description I suspect it is the problem anyway)
If it does boot, it might be a power problem(part of your description made me think this is a slight possibility)

A good point. It could even be your CPU instead of your graphics card so don't. Have a look around try to avoid by jumping into conclusions.

i have the same exact problem, did you fix it? if so how?!?

Do your hard drives spin up when you turn it on? How about any fans attatched to motherboard headers? Also, as mentioned before, do you hear any beeps when you turn it on? Lots more information is needed before you can pinpoint the problem.

Are you savvy enough to use a multimeter to test your 5V and 12V pins on your power plugs thereby eliminating the potential of a bad power supply?

I agree that is a good idea. The first thing you should ALWAYS ALWAYS do when a computer won't boot or your having trouble with it staying on, is make sure your getting the right amount of power, once you've ruled that out then take a look at your CPU, and then your video card.

Thanks for all your replies. After doing some testing it turned out that the video card had caused the initial problem by overheating and then when the power supply blew it shorted out the motherboard. I replaced all of them and upgraded my processor at the same time. A bit of an expensive solution!

Matt.

Wow! Talk about your chain reaction. Glad you got it fixed Matt, but too bad it had to cost you so much.