time for a new mobo?

snocked · 03-03-2003, 10:55 PM

This isn't really linux related, yet hardware related. Just when I entered the world of Slackware, which I absolutely love, I ran into a complication today; I know it's not Slack related.

I rebooted my computer today and there was no display. The green LED light comes on for about 15 seconds and then changes to orange. I tried a different (working) monitor and another graphics card (both PCI and AGP) and still no display. I also tried reseating all the hardware. I'm lost and don't know what my next step should be except replace the motherboard. Any ideas would be appreciated.

AMD XP 2000+
1GB DDR
120GB Western Digital
ABIT AT7 VT333
GeForce 4 ti4200 128mb DDR

cuckoopint · 03-03-2003, 11:59 PM

eeew...and the other vid cards/monitors show no change?
not good.

wait for someone with maybe a better idea, but if worse comes to worse, you may as well try to flash your mobo before you set out to get a new one....don't know how that might help, but maybe you'll get lucky?

also, is the HD spinning up, etc. ... maybe the cpu or ram is dying and it only looks like a video problem...maybe bad cooling? cpu fan went bust? ...in that case, computer would freeze and monitor would turn off?

mcleodnine · 03-04-2003, 02:28 AM

No diagnostic beeps from the speaker? You've already re-seated all the hardware (that would have been my first plan). You could reset the BIOS (usually a jumper swap) or brute force it by popping out the battery for a minute or two. Other than that you've pretty much tried everything I would have done myself.

michaelk · 03-04-2003, 04:25 AM

Do the fans run? Does the HDD spin? Speaker beep? Anything else happan?

It might be the power supply. Recheck power cables.

finegan · 03-04-2003, 06:54 AM

PSUs go more often than anything but hard drives and fans... of there's absolutely no movement on the board, pull the PSU and drop in anything atx, even if its underwattage, just enough to get to BIOS post... If you can get it to heat up on the current PSU, does it give a BIOS post code, the number and type of beeps it emits each have a meaning, depending on BIOS.

Cheers,

Finegan

snocked · 03-04-2003, 02:04 PM

HD is spinning, Fans are running and computer is booting into os because there's CPU activity, JUST no display. I've also tried removing everything except harddisk, video card(s), and one stick of ram (also tried different ram sticks in different slots). Monitor works on other computers and I've tried discharging the CMOS already. Like I said, everything is working fine except I have no display. When I say no display, I don't mean a screen that is blank, but instead nothing is displayed (not a screen with a blinking cursor, POST, or BIOS beeping errors). The monitor(s) jump into standby or power save mode after 15-20 seconds. No display before or after LED changes from green to orange on monitor(s).

arnold · 03-04-2003, 08:07 PM

just to make sure, when you power on, do you get any of the
usual power-on/bios messages?

snocked · 03-05-2003, 08:17 PM

No BIOS or POST because there's no display.

rnturn · 03-05-2003, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by snocked
No BIOS or POST because there's no display.

Have you tried booting an old DOS floppy to see if it'll at least boot? If you can see floppy activity when you issue a DIR command or something like that then at least the entire system isn't fried. The suggestions regarding the PS are worth following up on. One of the supply voltages may be beneath spec and unable to drive the video card. If you can get a hold of a really old video card that doesn't have much memory on it and doesn't require a cooling fan (lotsa heat comes from drawing lotsa current) maybe you can get something on the display. If so, all you may have to replace is the PS.

But if you do think you have to replace the m'board, maybe you can salvage the CPU and memory.

snocked · 03-06-2003, 04:40 PM

Funny story. I put in a new mobo and it booted up fine, the problem came when I rebooted in Slack. When rebooting in slackware the pc was somewhere between shutting down and rebooting when it would just freeze. Discharging the CMOS did nothing. So I also removed the CMOS battery and after awhile put it back in. PC booted up fine. I tried to reboot in Slackware again and comp froze just before rebooting. I removed Slackware, tried both Red Hat and WinXP on both motherboards and everything is perfect. I guess Slackware doesn't like my ABIT motherboards. I guess I won't be using Slack which I loved.

With the first motherboard, I just discharged the CMOS and didn't remove the battery, which for some reason I discovered with the second motherboard that on both mobos it would boot up fine only if I just removed the CMOS battery after Slackware reboot failure.