Computer won't POST anymore help!!

[Nik_I]

my computer recently began taking a long time to POST so i tried resetting the CMOS, but now it doesn't even POST! no display on the screen but everything powers up. The video card fan spins up but then seems to reset itself every 2 seconds. any ideas?

 

[loaky]

I had a system doing that few months ago, the constant rebooting after a few seconds. turned out to be the PSU on that, just died a death, it was a few years old.

 

[Nik_I]

just tried the system with a spare power supply which does for sure work. and the same result...

 

[Nik_I]

it also might be worth noting that my hard drive makes a quiet but high-pitched noise when it turns on. but the system doesn't post regardless of whether its connected or not.

 

[lcgalloway]

This just happened to me. Ended up that I lost all 4 DIMMs at the same time somehow. Everything powered up, fans were spinning, no POST codes, though. Drove me crazy trying to troubleshoot since I didn't think it possible that more than one or two DIMMs had gone bad. After I'd replaced everything else, I ended up trying some memory from another machine and it booted right up.

 

[Nik_I]

i suppose that's possible but i don't really wanna go out any buy ram just to see if the ones i have are bad... any other thoughts? also i should mention that the computer began taking a long time to POST after i tried running the SATA controller in AHCI mode instead of IDE.

 

[Nik_I]

well, i don't know what to say. i took out all the ram and noticed that the constant restart stopped. i then put one DIMM back in, and it booted! as fast as ever too! so now i have all the ram back in and it's running again! what a weird problem...

 

[shortstuff_mt]

I would suggest running memtest86+ overnight to test for RAM errors even though the system is booting now. Something funny seems to be going on with your RAM. Do you have the RAM timings and voltage set to the manufacturers specs in the BIOS?

 

[markucla]

Just an FYI,

I had the same problem one month ago.

First I cleaned out all the dust in the system.
Second I took out all the ram, and dusted (blew) around the ram contacts & where the ram fits into the motherboard.
Third I put 2 of the 4 ram sticks back in & the system booted okay.
Forth I then put in all 4 ram again, and again it would not work.
Fifth I then move all the ram sticks to different positions and voila, it worked and has worked everytime since and strangely enough, it does seem faster.

Hope this helps anyone else having the same problem.

 

[DiscoDuck]

Not to knock your system but I have had trouble with ECS mobo ram slots in the past. I now try to stick with gigabyte or asus but they sometime have defects too. If you buy enough parts, sooner or later you get a lemon no matter what brand.

 

[Brockavich]

Something similar to this happened to me once, and it turns out it was my RAM, my mobo apparently hated 1066 stuff.

If you have an older (compatible of course) stick of RAM lying about, pop that bastard in and see what happens