Old(ish) full tower in need of some TLC. Help please.

Thomkids

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Okay so I have been in the market for a new PC and I got my dad to give me his old one that he never uses anymore. It's a full tower with an Intel extreme 915p pf4 motherboard, I'm not sure about the graphics card but I know when he bought it, it was one of the nicest, so he says. 4 sticks of 4gb ram I believe, A 500w power supply and a Intel i7 processor.

Now the problem is that it has about a year or so worth of dust on it, I plan on getting an aerosol can and cleaning it all off. I don't know if dust would be a factor but I'm not getting anything to the monitor(s) he gave me with it through HDMI or DVI. It turns on and it sounds like everything is running but for the life of me I can't get it to display anything. He thinks that a while ago the HD crapped out and I need a new one but I'm suspicious of the motherboard itself. Is there anyway I can figure out just what exactly is wrong with it before I go spending hundreds of dollars on hardware I might not need? I can supply pictures if needed. Thanks for any help.
 
Even with a bad hard drive a computer will boot to the BIOS.

Does it POST Beep? A compuer will beep once if it passes its start up tests.

There's a problem with your "I think it has..." as the boards a 775 socket but i7 don't come in that socket.

Yuo need to clean it up, and reset all the parts before we can see if its booting or not.
 
Yes that is my motherboard. Sorry I wasn't sure what specifically you needed to help me, I'll give as much info as I can. You're right, talked to my dad and he said he never did get an i7. The video card is a Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 1GB. Sorry for being so vague before I hadn't really gotten time to take it all apart. And no there is no POST beep sound. I can hear the HD turning but thats about it. I also removed all the RAM, made sure it was clean and reconnected them all. That Didn't help either but at least I know it isnt the RAM.
 
I encountered a nearly identical problem - the battery (CR-3032) was depleted.
After putting a new battery (or button cell, as some say) the computer worked fine.
This is just a pointer to check the button cell.

ps. The computer sat unused for 10 months at a stretch.
 
You think if it turns on it still needs that changed? I'm probably just going to go ahead and upgrade the MOBO and the processor to a AMD 4100, not sure about the MOBO though. Any suggestions would be a great help.
 
I'd say popping out the battery for 30 seconds then retrying may help.

The photos of the board look like they have a speaker, so no beeps = somethings not booting and its not the gpu.

Disconnect the drives and try it out...
 
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