ok so here is the simplified version of what happened:

my dads dvd drive wasnt working so i took out one of my two dvd drives while the computer was off and then placed it in my dads computer, and all went well from there. A few hours later i get done messing with my dads computer and go to turn on mine, i notice that the HDD activity led is blinking constantly during POST also at this point theres no display on the monitor (it waits for a signal for a few seconds then goes to sleep), so i turn the computer off and turn it back on again, same thing. I let it sit for about 15 minutes and try again, it reads the HDDs very little during POST and everything seems to run fine but yet I still dont have a display. Also to make things even worse my computer speaker doesnt work, so I cant hear if post will give me any error beeps. I remember once upon a time seeing a pci expansion card that when plugged in would give you various info about the post, IIRC through leds and possibly sounds but i think it was around $100 and I cant seem to find it anywhere. Anyone know of any troubleshooting hardware like this?

Heres my specs (All of which are a little over a year old, excluding the HDDs which are about 5yrs and 2yrs respectively):
Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard (No Onboard Video)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200 w/thermaltake polo cooler
Western Digital PATA 80 GB
Maxtor SATA 80GB
2x512mb Kingston DDR
Nvidia Geforce 7600
Liberty 500watt PSU

Heres the things I've tried so far:
Tested both HDDs in my fathers computer, both worked fine.
Tested the video card in my fathers computer and it worked fine.
Tested the monitor and it works fine.
Took everything out of the motherboard and reseated/reconnected everything.
Cleared the BIOS
Checked the VGA cable from the video card to the monitor.
Unplugged the Slave DVD drive to see if the computer was looking for a secondary master but could only find a slave
Put the DVD drive back in my computer, its reading the HDD(s) like crazy again, im gonna let it do that for a little while to see if anything happens

what could be the problem here? I've tried everything I can possibly think of and nothing works! Ive been troubleshooting computers for about the past 8 or so years (not professionally) and usually I can figure something out within a few days, but this one has left me in a quandary. Any Ideas?

How were the DVDs + HDs attached? I'd check the master / slave status primary / secondary ide, don't use cable select, check the bios boot order?
Which HD(s) are bootable?

probably shorted out something on your mobo. it sounds like you've tested everything else.

That's the first thing I would check as well. You can verify this by just pulling the data cable off of the DVD drive you left in the machine. If it boots then you need to adjust the primary/slave jumper.

how would master/slave setting on his HD kill video signal?

WD was primary master, maxtor was SATA, and the drive i took out of my computer was the secondary master, and the other dvd drive was the secondary master (i believe the info about the dvd drives are correct, i can never rememeber)

neither of the HDDs are "technically" bootable, since windows is an a** and places the MBR and all of the necessary files on the first HDD it sees, which is the SATA drive and doesnt contain any actual operating systems (its a storage drive) while the WD contains all of the operating systems (xp/vista/ubuntu). once i get this straightened out i might actually change that around to avoid further aggrevation, the only reason i did it like that was because of the transfer rates (sata being 150 and PATA being 133)



did that with both harddrives and both dvd drives, still the same result.



dont say that i dont wanna spend another $100-150 on a new mobo



wierder things have happened

extensively tested everything else, i forgot i had another socket 939 cpu layin around, that wasnt the problem. i also tested the PSU output with a voltmeter and everything was on par, looks like its either the motherboard or the ram. most likely the motherboard, its a shame its only a year old

Did you unplugg the comp before you worked on it? Also did you ground your self?

My bet is for a fried mobo also...

nah, didnt feel it was that necessary since i was only removing the dvd drive and not messing with cards/ram/motherboard parts. all i did was turn it off

Try this: (Assume you had already put all your parts back into the case and reconnected together)

1) Unplug the power cable(AC) from the PSW.
2) Press and hold the "Power Button" for 15-20 seconds.
3) Plug back the power cable and try to turn on the Power.

Try the above to see if it works. Some of you may feel stupid but it did work on many DELL PCs.
If it works, let me know and I will tell you the rerason.


Good Luck!!!

nope didnt work, tried it twice. whats the reasoning behind it?? im curious about this one....

His reasoning is doing that "SHOULD" drain the capaciters. I really don't see how that would make a difference.

i told that to my dad (whos a former electrician) and he said that was the only reasoning he could think of, either way it didnt work

Try to clear CMOS from your motherboard and test the system again.

Well, we can try some other troubleshooting methods:

a) Test to see if the VGA is the problem, unplug the display card and turn on the PC, it should give you some "beep" sound. If it does, try put back the card and start again. It may be the display card hang up the system.

If the first method not working, try check the ram. your mb have 4 slots and you should used the ram slots 0 and 2. Try pull out the ram in slot 0, move the ram in slot 2 to slot 0 and start the pc. If the mb support single band then the system should started. If not, the system should give you some "Beep" sound. If you got "Beep" sound, try put back the ram you took from slot 0 into slot 2.


Hope it will work.

already tried that to no avail



i kind of tried that, but my problem is my pc speaker doesnt work so no beeps are available. first i just thought it was the speaker was messed up then i found out one of the leads came undone and had my father reattach it, and it still didnt work. i might just be easier to buy a new speaker first instead of buying a whole new motherboard. those little things cant be that expensive can they?

OK!

No sound on problem.

In first method, if the system didn't hang up without a display card, it will process the boot up process. Just look at the HDD LED to see if the HDD keep running. If it does, that means there is some problem with the display card. Try get another card to plug in to test. If the HDD is the same status as before you unplug the display card, try second method.

In the ram test, if your MB support single band start, you should see the display. If not, display will give you error message. If not display, try switch the ram as I said to see if it would help.

If all methods don't work, try put the ram into slot 1 and 3.

Good Luck!!!!!

One other thing you may want to check, when you check the cables(from the case like Power, Reset, HDD LED), try check again because most of the time people "Miss-Pin" the cables. For the FDD, if you have a FDD, try double check the back to see if the connector is connected normally because most of the time when people reconnect their system, they plug the 34 pin connector half way in or the 4pin power 1 pin left. This cause the system hang because the 12V short to the GND. Check it and make sure its not the issue to cause the problem!!!

Some motherboards won't boot if it doesn't get the correct signals from attached devices -- i.e. a single drive is attached and set to slave but the motherboard expects it to be master.

I agree. Especially the old school motherboards! When I gotten an IDE cable on wrong, it failed to even give any video.

Thus I freaked out and thought that the PC was damaged!

im over my friends house and he told me to try unplugging everything except the ram, cpu, video card and power to the mobo and see if that helps, it stopped reading the HDD at boot up but theres still no display. he also had an extra pc speaker that he told me to try, i plugged it in and there still werent any beeps. were going to try a few more things and swap out some of my stuff for his, if none of this works i guess im gonna get a new motherboard