Strange problem, suspect motherboard is kaput

[xcylent]

My friend called me over to see if we could fix his PC which was acting up lately.

Here's a picture of the rig.
It has a custom watercooling loop, and the problem recently occurred when my friend installed a universal GPU block so that he could put his GPU underwater too.
The GPU in question is a GTS 240, and the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Rev 2.3

The issues and process of troubleshooting we undertook are as follows:

- Everything plugged in. PC would start, give one short beep. BIOS would load, then screen would go black and PC would restart in an endless loop. All components seemed to be working, yet the PC would not fully boot.

- Everything except GPU plugged in. Using Motherboard video out. PC starts, but goes black after arriving at BIOS. continuous beeps.
This was fixed by removing one of the two sticks of RAM.
The result was a system that could boot successfully, however upon reaching the login screen, the screen would become artefacted and the PC unuseable.

- These happenings led me to believe the motherboard was shot.

Here is a video giving a bit more detail.

Here is the list of parts:

CPU: intel Core 2 Duo e7500
GPU: nVidia GTS 240
HDD(s): Seagate barracuda 2tb, 500GB / WD caviar green 500GB
WC system: Thermaltake Bigwater with custom blocks
PSU: OCZ Fatal1ty 550W
RAM: Transcend 4GB ddr2

My suspicion is that the motherboard is shot, however I'm still unsure.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Tom.

 

[magaman598]

The visual artifacts you're experiencing is in fact the GPU. Try testing the GPU in another computer and see if you still get the artifacts. As for the motherboard, a RAM slot might have went out, have you tried booting the PC with the RAM you have in it now in the other slot?

 

[xcylent]

The visual artifacts you're experiencing is in fact the GPU. Try testing the GPU in another computer and see if you still get the artifacts. As for the motherboard, a RAM slot might have went out, have you tried booting the PC with the RAM you have in it now in the other slot?

What confused us was that the artifacts were appearing whilst using the mobo graphics, not the GPU.
When the GPU was in use it was stuck in bootloop.
We tried switching RAM slots, nothing changed,
My friend is getting some spare parts he can try to troubleshoot with, but that'll be in a month or so.

 

[magaman598]

Ahhh, have you tried the GPU in another computer?

 

[xcylent]

Nope not yet.
Thanks for the help by the way

 

[magaman598]

Not a problem. (y)