While Testing Hard Drives, Computer Stops Displaying Picture at Startup

Status
Not open for further replies.
My computer has been running perfectly fine for over a year. Today I was putting extra hard drives as a secondary drive to see what was on them. I tried the first one and it started up fine. I tried the second one and it displayed an error at the boot screen. I realized I forgot to check the jumpers on that one. I tried starting up with just my main hard drive again and it started fine. I tried the last extra hard drive, making sure the jumpers were correct, and then the big problem started. It powered up, fans came on, hard drives ran, but no picture. I tried to start it up again with just my main and the same thing. Now, whenever the power is plugged in, the power light is on, whether the computer is on or not. When I hit the button, PSU fan, processor fan spins. You can hear the hard drive running. Nothing is displayed at all. There is a red light now on the motherboard which I believe is usually green. I have tried reseating the RAM in all configurations so unless both sticks went bad at the same time, I believe that is fine. I tried to start with both of the 2 hard drives which worked 10 mins previously so I belive they are also okay. Everything is plugged in properly. The only thing I did differently the last time it worked properly was I shut it down with the power button being I didn't have the keyboard/mouse plugged in.

My only ideas are:
1)PSU problem
2)Processor problem
3)Motherboard problem
 
My Hypothesis is the PSU, if it's to small, then it can't power anything, but usually it won't even start with not enough power, what are your system specs and PSU wattage?
 
AMD athlon 2400+ (2 ghz)
1 gb PC 3200 RAM
160 gb 7200 rpm hard drive
ATI radeon 9550 graphics card

and when trying the other hard drives, there was, obviously, another hard drive to be powered (40 gb 5400 rpm)

and I just checked the power supply for the first time.....250W (it was one of the $300 emachines computers and I just changed the ram, hd, gpu)

The only thing that confuses me is that:
a)It has ran fine like this for over a year
b)Everything starts up, it just doesn't display anything.
 
Try testing the power supply with a PSU tester they can be found on TigerDirect for $20.00 and they can come in handy.

Here is a link to one that has great reviews, just plug in all of your stuff to this, and it will show whether or not your PSU is faulty or not. But I'm almost 100% positive it is the PSU. It is most likely going faulty, it is an older one right?

-Elvrage
 
Power supply makes sense because its older, low wattage, and happened when I added more to power....but it doesn't make sense being it still powers everything and just doesn't show video and EVERYTHING was working about 5 mins prior..but unless anyone else thinks something different, I will have to try the power supply
 
After thinking about it, I don't understand why it would be a bad power supply. All of the fans and hard drives run. The only visible problem is that the screen doesn't show anything. The monitor is powered independently and I tried the integrated video so it isn't the graphics card. If I am right that means it would have to be processor or mother board. I would like to know if this sounds accurate/if anyone has any ideas.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back