Hi,

I could really do with some help.

I was watching a movie in mplayer when the screen suddenly froze, and the audio kept looping the same second over and over. I tried to CTRL+ALT+DELETE out of X and into the console, but it didnt work, so I had to manually shut the computer down.

When I switched the computer back on,the PSU seemed to be ok, but I just get a black screen, nothing else at all,and the monitor remains in hibernate mode instead of switching itself on.

I disconnected all the non-essential hardware (audio card/video card), and disconnedted/reconnected the HD, RAM sticks, and all the leads from the PSU to hardware (PSU appears to work, as the cdrom opens/closes, and the case fans work. Also I disconnected/reconnected all the leads from hardware to motherboard. I also reseated the CPU.

But Im Still getting a black screen on computer start.

How many RAM sticks do you have ? If you have 2, remove one and then the other one if it still doesn't work.

still getting the black screen

Well, it could be the mobo or PSU. Take it to a computer repair shop.

Yeah I thought it could be the mobo.

If it was the CPU, I would see some messages at least would I?

EDIT: scratch that...OP said the discrete card wouldn't work either. (i.e. problem is with mobo itself or maybe w/ PSU, not onboard/discrete video)

PSU is fine, just tested in another computer.

Then maybe the mobo ... do you see any changes ? like inflated capacitors ? blue smoke ?

no I dont see any inflated capacitors or blue smoke.

I think i'll buy a new motherboard.

Thanks for your help guys

wait

If you take out both RAMs, connect a small speaker to the PC SPEAKER outputon the board, and power up - does it beep ?

Try disassembling and assembling it until it begins to beep, then install the RAMs back

The CPU basically is the whole computer, all the rest is either data storage or interface devices. If the CPU is damaged, what is there left to even be able print an error message?