computer will not work
 

I have a computer with RedHat Linux installed. When ever I turn on my machine it will not show anything on the monitor. I used another monitor but same thing. I thought it could be the video card so I used another but got the same results. I also noticed the harddrives won't work either yet when I put them in another computer they work just fine. I'm stuck and I want to use my computer again. I don't know if this is enough info for any one to give a hint on what's wrong with my computer. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thx in advanced. :cry:

Hello,

Sounds to me like some hardware-failure.
when you power your computer on do you hear one or more beeps?
Does the Power-Led in Front of your computer work?
Do you hear any noise from the vents or harddrives?
Does the LED on your CD-/DVD-Drive work?

sounds to me like you dont even get the system beep at boot time...
that usually is indicator enough to tell that something is wrong.

do the following:
take everything out - leave nothing connected to your mainboard, exept the system battery.
attach the cpu + fan and connect the fan. add 1 piece of memory, add the graphics card,
add the power cable to the mainboard and start ths system - no keyboard mouse or monitor needs to be connected, just push the button and wait for the system beep. if there is no beep or more than 2 or a frequent beeping that does not stop something is wrong

if that works add the other pieces of ram and try again and continue adding one piece at a time.
you can also try different combination of added hardware and you can try leaving the ram away - you should then atleast get some beeps out of your system.

edit: 2 mins slower :-)

hmm sounds like hardware. in desparation you could try with NO ram, no cards, and no disks - just your CPU. It should just beep annoyingly. Then start adding stuff. It helps to have another machine to test your components in.

Before you start pulling stuff out of the PC lets have a little more information.
Do you know any info about this computer i.e. motherboard, CPU etc.
Does the CPU fan, power supply fan start spinning when you press the power button?
Do you hear any beeps, do the keyboard lights blink when turning on the computer?
ATX motherboards have a power switch on the power supply in addition to the case power switch. Make sure it is in the on position.
Verified that all connections to the motherboard are secure etc.

A quick SWAG would be a power supply gone bad.

Sorry for the late reply. Got caught up on work.

OK. Here are my computer specifications are:

Compaq Presario 5423US
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor - 1600 MHz (1.6 GHz)
400 MHz System Bus
512MB PC2100 DDR DRAM, 2 Total DIMM Slots Upgradeable to 1.0GB
80.0 GB UltraDMA Hard Drive
• 16X DVD-ROM Drive

• 16X CD-RW Drive

• Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Networking

• 56K ITU V.90 Modem

64MB SDR nVidia™ GeForce2 MX W/TV-Out Graphics Card
Compaq USB Internet Keyboard

As for the motherboard I tried getting the model number but there was just so many on the motherboard itself that I didn't know which one it was. My guess is this one SP#258125-001. When I did a search it gave me this: Compaq P4 DeskPro S478 Motherboard UATX. I never saw a switch on the MB but there was like a reset button. I hit it a few times but nothing happened. (Hope I didn't mess it up by doing this.) ;)

Now, I did what you guys asked me to do. I disconnected the harddrives, keyboard, mouse, cd-rom, dvd-rom, etc. When I turn it on I get [B]no[B] beeps but the LED on the power switch turns on. After that I connected only one of my harddrives (the 80 GB one) and it seems to run because you can hear noises comeing out of it also the other LED's turn on and stays on but do not blink (which lets you know that information is flowing). Yet when I connect everything the cd-rom, dvd-rom, and harddrives you can hear all types of sounds except for beeps but the mouse and keyboard do not turn on. Also I get no type of signal going to the monitor. I even tried another graphics card but I get the same results.

One thing you got to know is that the harddrive of 80 GB is messed up a little but it still works. The thing about it is that when the HD has a freshly installed os it works just fine but when you add programs to it or even personal things it just gets slower until it doesn't work. For this very reason I bought another HD of 160 GB. I decided to make the 80 GB into the master and the 160 GB HD into the slave drive. Now, I know the HD 80 GB has nothing to do with the problems I'm haveing with my computer (well, that I know of) because it worked just fine before my machine completely stopped working.

Thx in advance. :study:

What about the fans running? i.e. case fan, CPU fan, graphics card fan etc.
What do you mean by other LEDs turning on?
Problem could still be the power supply, CPU, ,memory or motherboard.

Both power supply and cpu fans run when the computer is turned on. As for the graphics card fan it never had one.

Now, for the power button, there is a small LED right at the bottom of the button which indicates that the power is on. There are also two more LED's one on each side of where the button is. I know one of them indicates information flowing through the computer but the other one I don't remember (lost the manual).

I also tried to take out the battery, leave it out for like a half hour (while the computer was turned off) and put it back on (then turn on the computer) but the results were the same.

I'm starting to think it's the motherboard. :(

:confused:

if you were wanting to reset the cmos, there is a jumper you need to swap over: it is the jumper closest to the battery

hello i've come across this same problem with 2 differnt machines usually what happens when you get the problem you have,
your computer been struck by a power surge or lighting strike

in my case i had both comps on surge protectors and but they failed to protect my computers

what i did was change out the powersupplies one computer recovered the other did not

the machine that i recovered was a shuttle av-30 mobo but the one that died was Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo it really made me mad becouse i spent $200 bucks on that Asus board and only $25 bucks on the shuttle board but i'm thinking it was the powersupply that took one for the team
so i would look for good powersupply but you might have a problem finding any other brand other then what compaq used in building the system

hope this helps
blame

p.s before you comment yes both psu's would power the fans and leds hdd, and cdroms just wouldnt post to bois or os

I use a power supply tester to quickly check ATX power supplies. Very handy when only one rail of the supply is down and fans etc are working normally but the system doesn't work..

And the testing unit is cheap.
This looks like the one I use.. http://www.dansdata.com/quickshot018.htm

Thx all for your help.

I have tried useing another power supply from a computer that was lying around but the connector was too small and did not fit. I will try my best to find the solution if not I will buy a new (cheap) computer 'til then. I was thinking of buying a small server with linux or unix. I was hopeing to make my own website if not a data base for all my art and graphic arts projects. Any suggestions or links on servers with linux would be appreciated.

Thx for the link.

If you can think of anything else I can do to find a solution please let know. I will keep you updated if anything accures. Thx again.

Well, here I am again.

I found this AMPROBE laying around in the house. It's a measuring and testing equipment thingy. Supposed to measure how much electricity is passing through the wires. This is more for like an electrician.

Now, I've checked every wire on the ATX plug from the power supply. I got these results:

WIRE VOLTS

Brown = 1.5
Brown = 1.5
Brown = 1.5
Blue = 0.0
Black = 0.0
Black = 0.0
Red = 0.1
White = 0.9
Black = 0.0
Black = 0.0
Red = 0.1
2 Blacks(one thin one thick) = 0.0 *two wires in one slot, weird*
Black = 0.0
Gray = -17.0
Brown = 1.5
Red = 0.1
Green = 5.05
Orange = -7.1
Red = 0.1
Pink = 3.324
Brown = -0.2
White/Red stripe = 0.5
White/Blue stripe = 0.5

Now, I'm not an electrician but I heard that some of these wires should be at least 5.0 volts. These are the results of this little contraption. I used the red wire to measure how much electricity was flowing on the wires and the black wire was put on the metal part of the computer and was used as ground. I'm a little too novice on useing this contraption. I just hope this can help solve my problem. Also hope you guys can understand this. Thx in advance. :scratch:

hello

i'm pretty sure its your power suppy but just to be safe
what you need to do is ground out you tester (black probe)
to either of the black wires on the 4 pin molex connector
now using the red probe test the voltages
red wire = 5volt
yellow wire = 12volts

if you get those results move to the ATX connector

again ground out you black probe to a black wire
and test your wire for the voltage

orange should be around +3.3 V
red should b e around +5.0 V
yellow should be around +12.0 V
White should be around -12.0 V
those are the only one i remember

but you need to complete your circuit with a + (to the red probe) and - (to the black probe) wire the only time i know of this not appling is with the white wire and one of the yellow wires which gives you +24 voltor the red +5V with the Yellow +12V which gives you +7V

let us know what you find
Blame

A black monitor on boot could be an unsupported framebuffer mode. Usually the way to test this is to boot up the computer and leave it running and try login in blind to see if X will start.