No splash screen, no image. Please help, actually desperate.

[Vicaris]

This is a recurrent problem, it's been going for years across different motherboards, CPUs, RAM sticks, GPUs and Power Supplies.

The only thing that's been constant is the case and the hard drives.

The mobo: Asrock A55M-HVS
HDs: This old Samsung HD, forgot its name and it's too hard to read it on my PC
Western Digital blue caviar, this is the C drive.

The problem is no image at all on the computer. Keyboard light won't turn on, mouse light keeps blinking (as it normally does before the splash screen shows up). Last time it happened, I sent it to the repair guy, he said my Western Digital HD had a bad block. For no reason after it came back from the guy, he didn't fix anything btw, the computer was working. Haven't had any problems.

Today, as I connected the disc drive sata cable to the motherboard, this problem returned. Mind you, I had forgotten to connect the power supply to the disc drive, so literally the only thing I did was touch my motherboard by hooking a cable onto it.

To my recollection, I didn't come close to touching any other SATA cable.

Turned on the machine, no image. I tried the following things:
Removing power cables and battery for 1+ hour
CMOS reset on the motherboard. No power cables, moved the jumper to the reset position, held the power button for over a minute.
Disconnected every hard drive.
Disconnected every USB cable.
Left it on for many minutes with and without HDs, with and without GPU, using different video ports
Disconnected the GPU. Tried using the mobo's HDMI and VGA ports.
Changed the RAM stick to another slot
Removed the RAM stick
Turned it on without powering the CPU
Disconnected every single cable from the mobo, let it rest for 1+ hour


I'm incredibly frustrated by the complete randomness of this problem. It usually manifests itself when I leave the PC off for a couple of weeks. This time though, that was completely ridiculous.

It's insane how it happened across multiple components.

Please help.

 

[bgunner]

do you have a case speaker? this allows you to hear the post beeps. if not you can get one from here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201032&cm_re=case_speaker-_-12-201-032-_-Product you may find them cheaper elsewhere but this will get you started. Your PC is not passing the POST test ( Power On Self Test ). Once you have a case speaker you will hear a series of long and short beeps pointing you in the area of trouble.

 

[Vicaris]

I don't have a case speaker. I'll see if I can get one tomorrow or monday. But, other than using a case speaker, any ideas?

 

[bgunner]

everything would be guessing at this point. That speaker will point you to which component is not passing the POST.

 

[Vicaris]

I have "fixed" it by unplugging every cable, removing the battery, resetting the CMOS again, like... unplugging absolutely everything I could unplug save from removing the CPU and left it like that for a couple hours. It did the trick.

I'm not touching this computer's insides ever again as it's incredibly frail and whimsical. So I won't be doing the case speaker thing. I should, but I won't.

 

[bgunner]

While that may be a prudent move, I still recommend having one on hand for when that part dies totally and you need to find it. It will give trouble in the future this is why I am recommending having the speaker on hand even if you do not plug it in till you need it.

On a separate note, I am glad you did get it to work again. Good luck and hope you don't need to use my fore mentioned advice.

 

[Vicaris]

Oh yeah I'm definitely getting a speaker. Getting one tomorrow in fact. But I'm also definitely not installing it until the problem shows up again on its own. Not touching my mobo.