Hard drive wont boot

[scomputer]

I have a older computer, w/ASUS P4b266-LA motherboard, it has a green light on it. Recently, my mouse, and keyboard went out. Try to turn computer on and my cd rom drive had a steady light. Dissconnect using the power supply plug, wait at least 7 min. Turn computer back on, dont hear the hard drive booting nor the a: drive trying to work.

What could be the problem. Mother boards lights up mouse and keyboard do not respond. Monitor is blank. Please help!!!

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

The green LED on your motherboard is just indicating that it is receiving current from the PSU.

Does anything happen when you hit the power button at all?

It would appear that your motherboard is failing (as you've probably already suspected). Though, it is possible that your PSU is defective.

 

[raybay]

And it could just as likely be your hard drive. Go to the hard drive manufacturer's website and download their drive fitness test. Run it on the drive jumpered as a slave in another computer. Also consider corruption of the operating system as a possibility. So running a borrowed hard drive as a test install might tell you a lot..
Also check your BIOS settings.
Motherboards seldom fail. That ASUS P4b266 is old but not ancient, and is not known for failures. So I agree with Zenosincks that the power supply is also suspect. It may be useful to buy a good power supply tester ($10 to $25), or temporarily test your system using a borrowed power supply.
Anything electrical has the potential for creating weird stuff... any pci card or any video graphics card, when defective, can have spurious responses that make the entire system seem flakey.

 

[scomputer]

When I turn on the CPU, nothing happens, you can hear the harddrive or the A:drive trying to boot. No lights on the keyboard or mouse

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

And it could just as likely be your hard drive. Go to the hard drive manufacturer's website and download their drive fitness test. Run it on the drive jumpered as a slave in another computer.

Can you clarify how a defective HDD would cause his symptoms please, Raybay?

Scomputer, try replacing either the motherboard or PSU. If it's not one, it's likely the other. You can attempt borrowing a PSU from another PC if you'd like, before making any purchases.