bought new PSU fan is spininng. not booting

[XjiminyCrickettx]

I recently had a problem that my computer would not boot up. The only thing that was happening was my fan spinning and humming coming from my computer. The hard drive light on the front of the computer (ORANGE) was on but not the green one. Someone told me it was probably a PSU issue so I upgraded my PSU but still nothing. Same sypmtoms and computer doesn't boot. No signal to monitor.


Any ideas on what the problem could be?

 

[CrazeD]

Did you plug the 4-pin connector into the motherboard?

Take out all your RAM and then start the PC. If it beeps at you, that means the BIOS is working. If it doesn't beep, the motherboard or BIOS could be damaged.

Try reseting CMOS as well.

 

[XjiminyCrickettx]

I'll try. But not sure hot to reset CMOS. How to please?

 

[CrazeD]

Take out the big watch battery at the bottom-right corner of your motherboard for a few seconds then put it back in. Make sure there is no power to the computer (IE: PSU unplugged or off) while doing this.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

ohh man. ive had that same problem about 4 times now with different computers. i beleive, i havent traced it tho, but i guess it might be traced to a faulty southbridge.

thats how my old compaq died. thats how my old dell died. thats how my old hp died. thats how my first biostar died. thats even how my emachines died. every time, the power light stays off but the hdd light turns on, except when there is no hdd hookd up...

on the other hand, i had that problem on a clients gateway before, and had an extra cpu laying around, so i tried it, and to my suprise, it actually workd!

 

[XjiminyCrickettx]

Did you plug the 4-pin connector into the motherboard?

Take out all your RAM and then start the PC. If it beeps at you, that means the BIOS is working. If it doesn't beep, the motherboard or BIOS could be damaged.

Try reseting CMOS as well.

I don't have a 4 pin connector on my motherboard. (Or i'm just missing it, which is more likely.)
I have a 20-pin from my PSU and a 4-pin that branches out of it, but I didn't need the 4-pin before. My old PSU doesn't have it.

 

[XjiminyCrickettx]

I did reset the CMOS and still nothing. Is there a way (by process of elimination) to determine if my computer is dead. Which would really suck...



BTW: I appreciate all your help so far.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

yes there is. remove everything but the cpu, and ram.

yes this includes the hard drive, all we want is to get into the bios.

if it still dont boot, try different cards of ram if you got them. if not, then first try a new motherboard, and if still nothing, then processor.

 

[XjiminyCrickettx]

will try tomorrow morning. got to get some shut eye. i will report back with results.

Thank you so much.

 

[networkgeek]

one way to see if it is the motherboard. take out the ram , then try to turn it on.

if you get a long beep then you know the motherboard is trying to post.

if not then you probably have a bad motherboard. no post test usually = bad mobo