Trying to revive older socket 754

[richgoose]

Got an older MSI RS480M - based emachine from a guy that was throwing it out. Buddy of mine needed and nettop so I began trying to get it running. "Guy" had removed all components, including CPU(!), and shoved them into various ziplock bags. Problem that he diagnosed was power supply, so why he deconstructed it to that level was inconceivable to me. Needless to say, CPU pins got bent and it became garbage. Tried the 2 DRR sticks in another comp and 1 was faulty (comp wouldn't boot) but other was fine. Ordered new Powersupply (newegg) and a used socket 754 ( ADA3200AEP5AP ). booted the comp only to be greeted by loud sharp clicks from HDD (IDE). Was able to boot from XP install CD but wasnt able to detect HDD at all... tried known good ide cables but no luck. also switched IDE ports with cd drive to assure it wasn't a bad port.

So I have a comp that will post, but with half a gig RAM and no HDD. Get a WD SATA HDD, jumper it out for 1.5g operation, and 2 1GB sticks of DDR 400 off ebay, and retry. Comp posts, and formats new SATA HDD without trouble. Enters XP install, and maybe 30 minutes into loading the OS, shuts off completely. Now the power supply will come on, but no video or other signs of life from anything but fans. Tested known good DDR RAM, have another power supply to try, but it's in a working comp so it's a last resort to troubleshoot with. Have no other socket 754 proc or mobo. To troubleshhot it down to 1 component would be ideal. Let me post up relevant specs. Also, to be clear, fans and power supply all come on but no video is ever output (no post screen or anything else). Thanks in advance...

MSI RS480M
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/RS480M.html#?div=Detail

AMD CPU
Athlon 64 3200+ ADA3200AEP5AP

Ultra 1024MB(1 GB) PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (x2)


Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

 

[das_stig]

Check for faulty capacitors on the motherboard, eMachines notorious for having crap motherboards.

 

[DXRick]

Maybe it's a heat problem. Try extra fans (especially one blowing on the GPU).

 

[richgoose]

artic silver 5 on cpu heatsink, no discrete card. Tried again this morning no luck. It's got to be mobo or processor, just ordered and refurbished socket 754 (ASRock) so maybe we will have better luck with that.

 

[richgoose]

due to poor research on my part, the asrock mobo ordered had no onboard graphics.... got lucky had an old AGP (!) x1050 diamond radeon card lying around. took a little tweaking but got the mobo to recognize the sata hdd (bios defaulted to raid? dunno why) and am installing XP Pro as I type....