Computer Does Not Post

[jasguer]

I know that this has probably been beaten to death but I am at my wits end here. I have a home built system that up until today has been working just fine. I had some hard drives that I was taking out of that system and moving to another one. I shut the system down, removed the drives then started the system back up. Fans started spinning but there was no POST, no display and no other system beeps whatsoever. I shut the system down using the power button, then pressed the power button again to restart it. This time, there was no POST, no display, no other beeps but the intake and exhaust fans were still on and spinning but the CPU fan spun for about 5-10 seconds then stopped. Not wanting to damage anything I shut the system down using the switch on the back of the PSU and I began my search to toubleshoot this issue:

1) Removed all devices other than the video card, RAM, and CPU - no change
2) Removed all sticks of RAM, running just the CPU and video card - no change
3) Removed video card, running just the CPU - no change
4) Installed one, two, three and four sticks of RAM alternating them for all possible combinations - no change
5) Removed the motherboard from the case and repeated steps 1 - 4 - no change on any of them
6) Reinstalled the motherboard into the case, connected a known working PSU and repeated steps 1-4 - no change
7) Thought that somehow I may have unseated the CPU HSF, so I removed the HSF, wiped of the old thermal paste from the CPU and the heatsink, applied new thermal paste and reassembled the unit - no change

At this point I'm thinking there are a few possibilities as to what the problem could be:
1) I need to reseat the HSF, I only had a really small amout of thermal paste left.
2) CPU is shot
3) Motherboard is shot

I just really find it kind of odd. I was pretty careful when I removed the hard drives. All I did was shut the system down, removed the drives, then started it back up and now it's not working. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[r_manic]

Another possibility you can consider is the power supply. It might have failed and could no longer be providing stable power for your system.

 

[marco324]

try resetting your cmos take out the battery for awhile read manual to reset cmos
by pins happens to me every so often always just a loose connection or something simple like that unless you where careless i don't think anytrhing is damaged
try reseating video card take the plugs out of hdd then back again ?

 

[jasguer]

I forgot to mention that I reset the CMOS three times, once by the jumpers (which I'm not sure if it actually went through) and two other times by taking the battery out for about 10 minutes each time. I have reseated the video card a few times and rechecked the power connections, to the board, the drives, etc several times as well.

 

[jsc]

1) Removed all devices other than the video card, RAM, and CPU - no change
2) Removed all sticks of RAM, running just the CPU and video card - no change
3) Removed video card, running just the CPU - no change

Right there, if nothing is shorted and all you get is silence; the suspects, in order, are PSU, motherboard, and CPU.

Fans spinning do not indicate a good PSU. All it shows is that the PSU can produce some power somewhere around 12 volts.

 

[jasguer]

Well, I've been pretty busy and haven't had a chance to really work on this much. I did test a known working PSU and still got the same results. (Fans spin, no POST etc) So, I'm thinking that some how I must have done something to the motherboard when removing the hard drives. I think I might bring it to my college to see if the IT lab can test the things before I drop any more cash at the problem. Thanks.