Help Isolate Problem (CPU/Motherboard?)

[jesyjames]

I am trying to help my brother with his computer. The basic issue is that it powers up, ie lights come on, fans start spinning(sort of), the gpu lights come on, and fans start spinning on those. It sounds like the hard drives are active. But it's not actually turning on. There's no signal to the monitor. The usb ports are completely dead. It's not actually posting. I hear no "beep" to indicate that it has.

Regarding the fans, the two fans on the back of the case are very lethargic. Half the time they don't power up, but then will if I manually give them a spin. This makes me think the power supply is bad.

I have tried a different power cord, resetting the cmos, different monitor, different keyboard mouse, checked all the connections.

Does it sound like a failing power supply or a failing mother board? I've had failing power supplies before but it was quite obvious they had failed-- they were dead.

 

[linuxguyit]

Hi Jesyjames,

Have you attempted reseating the RAM in his computer, or trying it in a different set of slots? Ive had problems like this before, and reseating or changing the slots that the RAM was in helped.

 

[apache_lives]

reseat video and ram

try different ram slot

one stick at a time

if you have onboard video try it first

your rear fans just sound cheap and old, not a psu issue not to say that the psu is bad

 

[jesyjames]

Thanks for the suggestion. Just tried that and no difference. As far as I can tell, all the lights on the motherboard are on. But there is no image, the bios doesn't ever post, and the usb ports are dead(ie. no power going to the mouse and keyboard plugged into them-- they have little lights). This time the two rear case fans wouldn't spin up unless I manually spun them a few times first.