Hello Board

I apologise if my post is not in the correct area of the forum - I didn't know where else to post a problem which I think might be caused by a number of different components. My PC isn't homebuild - it's a Mesh badged desktop.

I have a Mesh AMD 3500 desktop which is not booting up. When I turn the power on/start the PC up, the fans come on and I get the small beep that occurs prior to BIOS loading, but then nothing else seems to happen - the monitor (Viewsonic 19" flatscreen with a DVI connection to the PC) displays a "no digital signal" comment and then hibernates down. This hibernation is what happens normally when I turn the computer off without switching the monitor off also. The little green and little amber light (which indicate power supply and hard drive activity I believe) on the front of the base unit stay on solidly without any flashing.

This issue had happened a couple of times previously on an intermittent basis but when I turned the PC off (at the power switch) and then back on, the computer booted up again properly (albeit with the safe mode option). Last night I must have tried about 10 times to start it up but it didn't work.

I tried another monitor and non DVI cable with the computer last night but the different monitor still didn't pick up a signal so stayed in hibernation mode.

I've had a strike of inspiration this morning on the way into work (where I'm posting this from) and am now wondering if it might be the video card (nVidea 6800GT) that is up the duff - I can test that out tonight when I get home with a spare card I have.

Has anyone else got any ideas of what it might be so that I can print your advice off and take it home to try over the weekend. Unfortunately, I have no other working PC at home so won't have internet access. Oh the dread of a weekend without World of Warcraft!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

J

try booting with only 1 RAM STICK..... probably ram incompability.... if 1 stick doesnt work try plug it in another slot....

Do you get anything on screen prior to the beep, or just after? You might have a dead hard drive. Disconnect it and see what you get.

Hmmm...that happened to me a few times with my new rig last week. After disconnecting my moniter from my computer, and re-hooking it up, I was able (after 5 restarts) to get the moniter to work properly.

Also, try using a DVI->VGA converter and try plugging into an old VGA slot, and see if that helps.

Just the other day, I had two computers in a row, at the repair shop I work in, when I pulled the add-in cards, they booted fine,

one computer, had a bad pci modem,
and the other had a bad Network card,

various other things can cause the board to not function properly.

Inspect the board for any capacitors that appear blown or disfigured

goto images.google.com and type in capacitor, you will see many examples of the various types of capacitors out there.

Of course trying a spare video card is definitely worth a try.

Depending on how old the rig is, it may be "part" of the power supply is dead, or if you have upgraded the video, or other components, it's been running at capacity, and something inside of it, has "been" overworked, wouldn't hurt, to call around to local computer stores, and see if they will test your PS for free, it only takes a minute for them to do, and should be able to do on the counter without checking your system in. thats only if nothing else works.

sorry for the rushed comments, and the run on sentences.. but have to get out the door..

Gosh, thank you guys!

The PC is 3.5 years old - yes, just out of warranty of course!

There is nothing at all appearing on the screen when I start the PC up - nada, zip, blackness - then it hibernates. I think the lack of a signal causes the hibernation. Normally the first thing I see on the screen is the BIOS software thingie kicking in. I'm not even seeing that.

I haven't got a huge amount of technical knowledge but I will try removing the network card I've got installed (wireless, one of the RAM sticks, and replacing the video card. I will also disconnect the hard drive cable and see if the base unit makes noises different to those when it IS connected. Is there a power cable to the hard drive AND one of those lasagne type ones? If so, which one should I disconnect?

I haven't got a DVI to VGA connector but I have got a VGA video lead - the second monitor I have is an old CRT one so needs a VGA cable and that didn't work last night.

I can also try disconnecting the monitor and starting the PC up a few times.

Will also look up to see if we have a PC repair shop in a couple of the towns nearest to me.

I've not changed anything recently with the PC except for installing Office 2000 a couple of weeks ago. My anti-virus and Windows security updates are up to date, etc. Thankfully I backed up my wedding photographs onto a DVD the night before last after meaning to get around to it for over 3 years - I owe someone some karma back for that! It's so annoying and you don't realise how much you rely on PCs until you lose access to your home one. I don't even have a friendly IT team where I work as it's outsourced.

Thank you again.

Try pulling out your Graphics card and Ram and clean out the slots and then re seat them.

The hard drive light being on continuously is the reason I suspect a failing drive. Your machine knows there is a drive there, but is unable to communicate with it. If there is a ribbon cable going to it, that's the one to remove. Your machine may then complain about a missing hard drive, but that's ok because you will have found the problem (but possibly not your data ). If you get a message on screen, power off then reattach the cable. Perhaps dust or thermal cycles affected the connection.

Hello Guys

I got home on Friday and swapped the graphic card with a spare one, pulled out the wireless NIC, normal NIC and sound card. I pulled the hard drive out, removed the cables and put them back in again. Switched the monitors and vid cables about again and got generally very frustrated.

Then at 8pm I took my PC to a wonderful guy doing PC repairs a few miles from where I live who I found online. He called me later to tell me that there was nothing wrong with my hard drive at all but that my power supply had gone and wasn't powering the hard drive up, although it was powering the motherboard, lights and fans, etc. He replaced the power supply with a nice new 450w one, cleaned my machine out thoroughly (I have 3 house cats!), put lovely neat cable tidies on everything and generally gave my PC a bit of well deserved attention. It works wonderfully now.

Thank you all for your suggestions and kudos to mreid2005 who mentioned "it may be "part" of the power supply is dead" which is exactly what it was.

Jules