start up probs

[slugger63]

hi to all i am a new member so please bear with me, i have a problem with one of my pc's i have not used it for a few days and when i went to turn it on it made a bumping sound and the power light on the front panel flashes and the harddrive light flashes the monitor says no vga signal then goes off the repeats itself. the psu fans are working and the cpu fan is working, so i am puzzled at the moment. my broardband modem is running through the ethernet connection but it says there is no pc activity, when i exchange it to the usb connection it says there is activity. i have looked and tried to see if there are loose pieces of hardware and loose connections but they seem ok, i have thought it might be a harddrive prob so i swapped over one and still its the same, so in my mind the motherboard seems the culprit, so if anybody has any ideas on this for me i would welcome them with open arms, before i go and purchase a new motherboard. thank you all for being patient with me has its my first time on here and are looking forward to any response
paul

 

[QuaziBee]

I'm not sure what you mean by a 'bumping' sound. If it sounds like something is being knocked around in there check your fans for obstructions and try removing your CD drive. Can you get into BIOS or does it not display anything? When you turn it on does it make any beeps from the system speaker? If it does then cross reference the beep code with your motherboard manual. You can usually find a copy of that at the manufacturers web site. The next thing I would do is check to see that all the RAM and expansion cards are seated correctly by removing them and reinstalling them. If this fails I would flash the BIOS. By logical deduction you can narrow it down to a video card problem, a dead/fried PCI (or AGP) slot that your video card is plugged into. A more general motherboard problem, or even a processor problem. If any of this helps or doesn't please let me know.

 

[Nick]

i would point the finger at the PSU, if you've got another one lieng around stick it in and see what happens

 

[Law]

Welcome to the forum.

If the problem is with the video card, your motherboard should communicate to you with beeps to indicate problems with the core hardware. If no beep(s), you have to start diagnosing the CPU. It could be the power supply or RAM. I would try taking every other hardware off or unplugging them and just leaving the CPU, RAM, video card to boot. Of course you'll also need the PSU, monitor and keyboard. Reseat these components to make sure they are tightly connected, especially the CPU. I have had experience with CPU getting loosed overtime due to the heavy heatsink/fan and thermal grease that acts like glue over time lifting the CPU slightly off the socket when improperly installed.

Try those components first.

 

[slugger63]

hi thank you to all the bumping sound is a thud and flashing harddrive light and flashing power light, monitor says no signal then goes blank then repeats , thats all i can tell you i am sorry, the fans are working and usb ports seem to be powered up so i dont see how it can be the psu unless i am mistaken.i have tried looking at the ram and cpu and removing and replacing it making sure its seated properly so any more ideas would be greatfully accepted

 

[slugger63]

thanks all i have tried all of the things you suggested and still problem exists the bumpping sound is a thud and the monitor says no signal then goes off then repeats itself. no loose connections are visible ram is seated fine and its dust free i will replace psu with borrowed one and if no joy the i will replace wat i can awaiting your replies
paul