Weird video/post/black screen intermittent problem...

[Draetor24]

I have had this problem since building my box earlier this year, but it was never really serious. I'll start by telling you my basic hardware setup...

Windows XP Pro SP2
ASUS A8R32-MVP Mobo
AMD 64 X2 4400+
2GB OCZ RAM
ATI x1900xt 512MB Video
Samsung 940bf LCD 1280x1024 19"

What happens is this. If everything is off (monitor and PC) and I power up, what normally happens is my video card fan spins up real loud, the screen POSTS, the video card fan spins down, and the rest of the PC is completely quiet. This is a normal boot...

Sometimes (maybe 1 in 4 boots) I'll hear the video card fan spin up, I don't hear the single beep POST, and the fan does not spin down, it seems to be stuck in a loop with a black monitor screen. To remedy this, I just power down and start it back up.

This is when I power the system up from the start....I also get a problem sometimes when I reboot from the OS. I will restart the computer, it goes back to where it should normally POST, but instead I get a black screen and no beep sound for the POST message. Monitor is black screen again.

It seems like a POST issue because I don't hear the single POST beep like I normally would. In Windows XP itself, I have no performance issues and benchmarks run fine. Memory tests fine in memtest86 in DOS. Everything seems fine and everything works fine except for the occassional POST not going through, which requires me to power off and back up.

I thought it could be a video to monitor connection problem at first, now I'm thinking motherboard BIOS issue. It's intermittent though, and 3 out of 4 times it's fine, the other time it's not working.

 

[Rik]

It could also be a psu issue!! What psu make and wattage are you using??

If it is a cheap generic one then that could explain it!!!!

 

[Draetor24]

Hmm, I doubt it. I'm using an Enermax Liberty 620W or so. If it was a PSU problem, I'm thinking I'd have much serious problems and not an intermittent one?

 

[Rik]

Make sure all the plugs from your psu are firmly seated in their respective sockets!!!

Check your bios to see if any of the voltages are out of spec!!!!

The only other thing it could be is a faulty mobo!!!!

Thinking about it, i did have a similar problem with a mobo sometime back, i changed capacitors on that mobo one by one and eventually fixed it!! I had the capacitor that made the difference tested and it was quite some way out of spec!!!!!

 

[Draetor24]

Ya, the PSU are all firmly seated, hardware all firmly seated. I checked cables myself and made sure there is nothing out of place.

Usually it is the capacitors on the mobo that cause mobo related problems. I'm thinking the direct problem on this one is the mobo not initiating the BIOS POST ROM chip properly each time.

I could always contact Asus support and see if they've encountered this before on my board and if it's warranted for an RMA, but then I'd have to wait a while to get a working PC up again.