No Display/CPU fan not spinning

badaxe2

Distinguished
Aug 27, 2008
491
0
18,780
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W
SAPPHIRE 100255U Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3 for System Builders

Trying to narrow this down, GF's folks' PC display suddenly quit (no signal) and CPU fan stopped working. Lights on MB still show as normal, PSU fan working, HDD, etc. I noticed though the CPU fan will try to spin when powered up, and then briefly spin a few rotations just as the rig is powered down (holding in the power button). I already replaced the CPU/heatsink unit with a spare I have that tested good before storage, but get same result.

I'm guessing something on the MB shorted out. The case was very dusty. Is there a tool to test for dud components, akin to the something they plug into a car to check for thrown codes?


Any info is much appreciated!
 

That would be what the PC-speaker pins on the motherboard's misc. IO header (where HDD activity, reset, power, etc. pins are) is for. If you have a speaker plugged on those and hear nothing, your PC is not even getting to POST.

If you hear nothing from the PC-speaker, either your PSU might be acting up, your CPU is busted or your Motherboard is busted.

If you have access to a spare PSU, I would start with testing that since it is the easiest and safest of the three to test.
 

The un-loaded paperclip "test" might tell you whether or not the PSU is completely busted but it does not tell you whether or not the PSU will maintain proper load regulation while the computer is booting... or at least attempting to.