Crash; no POST; blank screen

[Konstant1ne]

While playing F.E.A.R. the other night my computer crashed for some odd reason, after that it wouldnt boot back up. the fans and power supply still work but all i get is a blank screen and nothing else not even a POST. just a week earlier i got an "unmountable boot volume" blue screen but i fixed that, then another blue screen made me update my video drivers. everything seemed to be working fine except for a few ridiculously long loading screens on some games, and then this most recent crash. i tried a different vid card and that worked fine for a while until i stuck the other card back in and i got the same problem as earlier, so i put in the other card and now it does the same thing with both cards and i dont know if its my mobo or my vid card. does anybody have any ideas?

Mobo: Gigabyte P4 865PE
Vid Card: ASUS nVidia GeForce 6800GT

 

[DonNagual]

I'm going to take a guess and say either ram or power supply, most likely power supply.

Test your ram just to rule it out. Download and run www.memtest.org for 6 or 7 passes (takes a few hours).

Failing power supplies are extremely hard to diagnose because they make OTHER parts in your system start acting strange, making you think it is some other part that is dying. Also, they are somewhat hard to test unless you have a voltmeter at home (and most people don't).

If you have another PSU to test with, that is one way to troubleshoot. Also, go into your bios and see what it is reporting your voltages are on the +3.3v, +5v and +12v rails.

Let us know what you find.

 

[Tedster]

I got the same error on my computer. I noticed the graphics card fan was totally not on.

 

[Konstant1ne]

i dont have very many resources to test the RAM or power supply, so it might be a while. but im convinced it is the power supply.

 

[Tedster]

circuit city sells a very good power supply tester for $12
very easy to use.