I recently hooked up a new 320Gig IDE drive to my Asus Motherboard. It ran, I formatted the drive, installed windows but when I went to start windows, it kept rebooting. Putting in the CD just caused it to want to install windows fresh, all over again. I figured it might have something to do with the jumpers on the HDD (I set it to Master with Slave present at first.) So i removed the jumper so it was just on Master.
Then I left for the day, without powering up.
Day 2:
I went to switch my 'puter on, and nothing. Not a peep. No fans. No HDD drives spinning. Checked the power cord - plugged in...the monitor worked off the same plug...eventually, I got out my multimeter. I tested the on switch (seemed good...continuity between the switch and a HDD power cable when switched on and nothing with it off.)
I noticed the motherboard had a green LED that lit up when powered up, so some power was making it to the motherboard. But still no fans nor HDDs spinning. Dead screen (as in "no signal").
Unplugged the HDDs, CD and DVD and tried to boot up again...nothing.
Unseated and reseated the memory, video and sound cards. Nothing.
Tried powering up with just the memory in...no fans...no action.
Tested the external power cord...continuity there too. Eventually, I pulled the cord that runs from the power supply to the motherboard and tested the voltages with it plugged in. One of the ground pins read 28V. Most others read nothing...except for one 9V (which was an unexpected value, usually they are 3.3V or 5V.) So I figured the powersupply was toast.
Day 3:
Bought a 400W powersupply to replace the 300W one. Screwed it into the case, attached the power cable to the motherboard, another small cable to the video card, a 3rd thin one to another part of the board (don't know what this one does but the old one was plugged in there so I replicated the setup.)
Attempted to power up...nothing. No fans, no HDD. Not a sound...just that same old green LED on the motherboard.
Didn't have my multi-meter this time to check the pins on the powersupply, but I just bought it new from the store so it seems highly unlikely that it has exactly the same problem. No, it's gotta be something else.
But what? I need information off this computer and...I need to be able to use the damn thing. So...what do I test? I highly doubt the CPU got unseated as it's strapped in pretty tight with a fan on top...and besides, it wasn't moved since it last worked.
There is a spot on the motherboard for HDD styled power connector to attach...the old power supply was plugged into this...but I thought maybe that is the problem...so I plugged that in too...but still nothing.
What am I missing? Any suggestions for what I can test and how?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as funds are tight and paying a service guy isn't really an option. (I am secretly hoping that I forgot to plug part of the power supply into the motherboard and it'll all work just fine...say, the same cord I accidentally knocked off when I removed the HDD jumper just before it failed to work. Is that possible?)
Then I left for the day, without powering up.
Day 2:
I went to switch my 'puter on, and nothing. Not a peep. No fans. No HDD drives spinning. Checked the power cord - plugged in...the monitor worked off the same plug...eventually, I got out my multimeter. I tested the on switch (seemed good...continuity between the switch and a HDD power cable when switched on and nothing with it off.)
I noticed the motherboard had a green LED that lit up when powered up, so some power was making it to the motherboard. But still no fans nor HDDs spinning. Dead screen (as in "no signal").
Unplugged the HDDs, CD and DVD and tried to boot up again...nothing.
Unseated and reseated the memory, video and sound cards. Nothing.
Tried powering up with just the memory in...no fans...no action.
Tested the external power cord...continuity there too. Eventually, I pulled the cord that runs from the power supply to the motherboard and tested the voltages with it plugged in. One of the ground pins read 28V. Most others read nothing...except for one 9V (which was an unexpected value, usually they are 3.3V or 5V.) So I figured the powersupply was toast.
Day 3:
Bought a 400W powersupply to replace the 300W one. Screwed it into the case, attached the power cable to the motherboard, another small cable to the video card, a 3rd thin one to another part of the board (don't know what this one does but the old one was plugged in there so I replicated the setup.)
Attempted to power up...nothing. No fans, no HDD. Not a sound...just that same old green LED on the motherboard.
Didn't have my multi-meter this time to check the pins on the powersupply, but I just bought it new from the store so it seems highly unlikely that it has exactly the same problem. No, it's gotta be something else.
But what? I need information off this computer and...I need to be able to use the damn thing. So...what do I test? I highly doubt the CPU got unseated as it's strapped in pretty tight with a fan on top...and besides, it wasn't moved since it last worked.
There is a spot on the motherboard for HDD styled power connector to attach...the old power supply was plugged into this...but I thought maybe that is the problem...so I plugged that in too...but still nothing.
What am I missing? Any suggestions for what I can test and how?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as funds are tight and paying a service guy isn't really an option. (I am secretly hoping that I forgot to plug part of the power supply into the motherboard and it'll all work just fine...say, the same cord I accidentally knocked off when I removed the HDD jumper just before it failed to work. Is that possible?)