Rokkaholik Posted April 2, 2009 Posted April 2, 2009 A friend of mine was upgrading hsi video card in his Gateway 838GM tower. When he went to start the PC, he had nothing. The fan on the CPU kicks in, the mobo ready light is steady green. power supply seems to be working, but no video. So far, we unhooked everything except for the 4 pin mobo power, the 24 pin mobo plug and still no video. We also took out the aftermarket vid card and hooked straight up to the onboard video, and still nothing. I've tested some of his parts in my spare machine such as the memory, vid cards, etc and they all work, so we're left thinking the CPU, Mobo or both Any other ideas? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
damian Posted April 2, 2009 Posted April 2, 2009 Try booting up with out a PS/2 keyboard or mouse same with USB. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
psycho_terror Posted April 2, 2009 Posted April 2, 2009 test the monitor on another machine. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wormy Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 yeah the monitor would be my first choice Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokkaholik Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 (edited) Monitor works fine. The machine goes into high speed fan when initially booted like most machines do, but this one just stays high speed and never changes. I've tried booting with no accessories plugged in, with only PS2 mouse/keyboard and using USB and the same results. I've also cleared the Cmos. He said that it worked perfectly before switching out the vid card. I'm wondering what he possibly zapped when he was tinkering around in the case. Edited April 3, 2009 by Rokkaholik Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuclear Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 It's possible he fried the PCI-E slot leading to general motherboard failure, but that's quite rare. Can you test the components in your rig or does he have another rig to test? Has the PSU been tested? Have you tried removing the system from the case to ensure nothing is causing a short? How much experience does your friend have installing computer components? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokkaholik Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 The PSU is fine. I'll be tinkering with it this weekend to see what I can do. He has little to no experience with computers other than the on/off button Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokkaholik Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 Both vid cards he sent me tested good. The first was the one he was replacing because he thought it was going bad. It worked fine in my machine... I'm really leaning towards the motherboard now. Bios? One of the bridges? And on a side note, I took his hard drive and installed it on my machine as a slave to see if it would boot, and it gave me a warning that I was looking at a Recovery Partition. I didn't need to go into that, but where was the rest of his stuff? I "could" have etered the recovery partition, but I was afraid it would wipe out my backup PC's MAIN OS if I tried it. I just may have to get a mobo for it and go from there. We were also toying with the idea of finding a USED case and mobo with 775 socket for a P4 and regular DDR memory along with a PCI Express slot and then transplant all his stuff into that case. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copie Posted April 5, 2009 Posted April 5, 2009 Dont know if this could help but try a different set of ram sticks and/or reseat them as well, it may be that as well. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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