Motherboard partially fried ? leds on; fans on; no monitor output

[inac]

After taking some 4x 4gb Kingstom HyperX memory memory out and replacing with 2x 2gb Corsair, I've not been able to get anything to show on my monitor again. There are leds showing on the mobo (orange, green, and blue leds), and PSU leds as well, and the fans all work - I've tried with different graphics cards to see if it's the card that's fried.. no output on monitor in two otherwise working cards.

Is it possible to fry just part of the motherboard?

I have an EVGA p55 micro board with i7-860 and 2x2gb Corsair DDR3 XMS3 DMX ram currently. NVIDIA Quadro FX580 plugged in

 

[daship]

Try the old ram again, and reset the cmos. Corsair usually needs to be set manually in the bios, speed/timings.

 

[inac]

The Kingston were on loan from a friend, so I don't have them anymore... I don't recall having to reset the bios when I put in my Corsair way back. In either case, I can't get any signal on my monitor, so can't access BIOS...

N00b question on resetting the CMOS - there's a manual CMOS reset button on the back of the case and also a button inside. Does the power need to be plugged in for this CMOS reset?

I tried pressing the back cmos with power off (cord unplugged, etc). Tried booting up. No signal.

With plug in, pressed cmos on inside. Same.

 

[inac]

Incidentally, the 3 leds below all show. It seems the memory slot is okay:

LED Status Indicators
The LEDs near the 24pin ATX connector indicate the system’s status.
 POWER LED (Green):
When the System is powered on: This LED is on.
 DIMM LED (Orange):
When the Memory slot is functional: This LED is on.
 STANDBY LED (Blue):
When the System is in Standby Mode: This LED is on. This LED will remain on as long as the motherboard is receiving constant power.
Debug LED with CPU Temperature Monitor

http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/121-LF-E652.pdf

 

[pjmelect]

Try resetting the CMOS with the new memory in. The old memory settings may not be compatible with the new memory.

 

[inac]

Tried that..

Incidentally should CMOS be rest with power plugged in or not

 

[pjmelect]

The CMOS memory should ALLWAYS be cleared with the power cord DISCONECTED then wait a few seconds before trying to clear the CMOS memory. Failure to do so can damage the motherboard and will also fail to clear the CMOS memory.

 

[inac]

I tried CMOS button reset the first time with power cord disconnected - waited about ten or twenty minutes, food break. Came back, same thing.

 

[jsc]

Work through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If not, continue.

I have tested the following beep patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU.

Make sure you plug the CPU power cable in. The system will not boot without it.

I always breadboard a new build. It takes only a few minutes, and you know you are putting good parts in the case.

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU. Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps:
Running fans and drives and motherboard LED's do not necessarily indicate a good PSU. In the absence of a single short beep, they also do not indicate that the system is booting.

At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

A way that might be easier is to use the main power plug. Working from the back of the plug where the wires come out, use a bare paperclip to short between the green wire and one of the neighboring black wires. That will do the same thing with an installed PSU.

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card.

Silence or long single beeps indicate a problem with the memory.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.
At this point, if the system doesn't work, it's either the video card or an inadequate PSU. Or rarely - the motherboard's PCIe interface.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.