Total Death

[Frank Browne]

I have a budget PC which just stopped working.
On start up the processor fan kicks in, the seek lights on the two DVD drives blink momentarily, there are no beeps from the mother board, no display at all and the HDD originally showed activity for about 90 seconds.
I replaced the graphics cards and removed all other items from the PCI slots.
I changed the motherboard and still have the same problem. Could my processor have completely failed? Its an AMD athlon64 3200 and its less than a year old.

[Greg]

It's hard to diagnose from a distance, but are you sure it's not just your monitor and/or video card connections? Or either the video card or monitor itself? (assuming you have a seperate video card - it might be onboard the motherboard)

[Renmoo]

(No intention of discouraging Greg)

If the issue becomes too tricky to resolve, I suggest you take the computer back to the manufacturer and demand a repair.

Cheers

[george12]

I have a budget PC which just stopped working.
On start up the processor fan kicks in, the seek lights on the two DVD drives blink momentarily, there are no beeps from the mother board, no display at all and the HDD originally showed activity for about 90 seconds.
I replaced the graphics cards and removed all other items from the PCI slots.
I changed the motherboard and still have the same problem. Could my processor have completely failed? Its an AMD athlon64 3200 and its less than a year old.

When you say "showed activity", was the light solid-on, or was it flickering away like it would during a normal boot? If the latter, your computer is working, and something in the graphics "chain" is shot (eg graphics card, monitor etc). Try a different screen and a video card.

If it was solid-on, this is a bad sign, and the computer is not even beginning it's power-up routine - so your RAM, CPU or motherboard is probably bad (or your power supply).

If you replaced the motherboard and know what you were doing, then that's one less thing to worry about. Swap the ram first as it's easiest, then the power supply. The CPU is, assuming no user error (too much paste etc) has been made, the least likely major part in a computer to fail, but if you have tried everything else, I would conclude it was the CPU, but swap it out to make sure before heading to the shops.

[ManUFan]

Just a thought.... Have you tried another power supply unit?

[Speedy Gonzales]

Sounds exactly like what just happened to my one that just died.

The hdd / power LED's went on, the hdd LED was flashing, but there was nothing on the monitor. I removed everything as well, still nothing.

But when I plugged the videocard into the other PC here, it was fine, the monitor came on. But in my case, the CPU is still fine, so is the videocard.

I think my mobo died somehow, for some unknown reason, the mobo couldnt send a signal to the monitor. So, I could see anything.

[FoxyMX]

When I had a dead CPU the case fans would spin up for a second then stop. Nothing else stirred at all so it is possible that your CPU is not the culprit.

RAM and PSU are what I would be looking at.