Ghost In The Machine

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DanDan

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Well it seems that there must be a ghost in my friends PC as I can't work out what's happening, so I shall explain the problem and what we have tried, and i hope someone can help us out!

A while ago my friend was booting his machine when it suddenly powered down and there was a "nasty smell" apparently. After this we have replaced the motherboard, processor, RAM, graphics card, and PSU. It powers up fine and still did with the origonal components that blew, but it is sending no information to the monitor, which just sits in self diagnostic/no signal mode.

Power is getting to the machine and as we have replaced every single component in between the power and the monitor yet there is still no signal being sent. It's stumped me good and proper.

Please help if you can!!!
 
Sounds like a video problem to me. Does the mobo have on board video? If so then the video might be coming out of that and the video card isn't being used yet by the computer. That would have to be changed in the bios which of course would require being able to see the video. Also, if a computer part is fried, it may work still. It could be that merely a specific area of the part is fried and until your computer tries to access that area it will run fine.
 
Alex81388: Yes I have replaced the memory as I stated above.

jppoulin: thanks for the suggestions.
I have replaced the origonal motherboard which has onboard graphics after trying it with a graphics card. There is now a motherboard with no on board graphics in with a really old but reliable voodo graphics card in.
Like I say it's sending no information to the monitor whatsoever so we can't even acces the bios
 
Have you taken out the battery on the motherboard (for about 1 minute) to completely reset system settings? That would be my next move.
 
yeah there was no battery in the old motherboard, and so have used the one from the origonal motherboard. The bios battery shouldnt prevent a signal being sent to the moniter though surely.
 
Well you've tried every option I can think of.

The chances of both onboard's and video cards being bad is very low, as well as both of the MB's just being bad. But there is always a chance.

If you have the computer on, and plug in the cord of the Monitor to the card, do u hear anything from the monitor, but still se no display? There is a difference from seeing it's connected - and not getting a signal on most monitors.

im 90% sure you have a fried Video card, or a fried onboard video....but part of the motherboard is working - as was said above. But since your almost out of options the only other thing would be to try yet another video card or MB.
 
That's the same conclusion I got to. The probablility of all the hardware being faulty is minute, hence my theory on etheral intervention!

I might be able to get my hands on yet another vidoe card and motherboard but im not holding out much hope!

Thanks for the help and if u think of anything else (and i mean anything at all, I'm ablsolutely out of ideas) please let us know!
 
Just because no signal goes to your monitor doesn't mean it's a video problem like most people are prone to jump to.

You need to put the motherboard on wood, glass, antistatic bag, cardboard, something that won't short it...make sure your case is nearby so you can hook up the PC speaker.

Plug in just one stick of RAM, vid card, and keyboard then see if you get any response.

Pull out the video card, if it beeps, chances are the video card is at fault here and preventing the system from POST'ing.

If no beeps, put the vid card back in, and remove the stick of RAM, same thing, if it beeps, chances are it's the RAM...if still no beeps, then as a last ditch effort, trying pulling out both the RAM and the vid card, if the board still does not beep then the CPU or motherboard is at fault here.

The bios battery shouldnt prevent a signal being sent to the moniter though surely.
With no battery, the CMOS isn't holding any information, which means it can't even access the BIOS, therefore, it has no instructions to even POST, hence no working computer
 
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