Massive POST failure

[zimzum42]

Desktop PC.

Working fine.

Plug in speakers (which were powered on). Everything seems to go dead. Screen is working, but no response from mouse or keyboard.

Force crash and restart. Run as normal, no safe mode.

Thing boots up, but same problem, desktop appears but no response from mouse or keyboard.

Force crash and restart. Fans all start up, disk drives start, but nothing appears on screen.

Have tried starting up with DVD drive and hard drive disconnected etc, but nothing seems to work.


Any ideas? Might I have fried the motherboard? (ASUS P5B by the way, Windows 7)

 

[courtenay]

is your sound card on board as in built into the m/b or seperate pci card if the latter check it see if its loose. failing that its possible you fried the m/b but given the way you describe it i doubt it.

 

[zimzum42]

The sound card is built in to the motherboard...

It does seem very odd. Tried it with different monitors too - no signal detected

 

[dellzeqq]

this has a dreadfully familiar ring to it. Could be the motherboard was shorted by a fault in the socket.

 

[ThePainInSpain]

What about the video card, is that separate. Just had a similar thing it was the 3 week old video card I had fitted gone belly up.

 

[2Loose]

Does the mobo have a reset cmos jumper anywhere?

I shorted one of my usb ports and couldn't get a POST or monitor signal...similar symptoms to you. Moved the reset CMOS jumper, powered on, powered off. Moved it back and all systems were go again.


May not work, but worth a go. Found P5B instructions for doing this : Here

 

[zimzum42]

Thanks for finding that. I had a go but no luck, still doing nothing :-(

 

[ian turner]

At the least you may have fried one of the rails on the psu (contrary to popular opinion amongst PC World Techs the fan spinning doesn't mean the PSU is okay).
Remove everything from the motherboard, drives, graphics card and RAM and see if it gives a bleep error on bootup.
If not then it's either the cpu, the motherboard or the PSU.

 

[2Loose]

At the least you may have fried one of the rails on the psu (contrary to popular opinion amongst PC World Techs the fan spinning doesn't mean the PSU is okay).
Remove everything from the motherboard, drives, graphics card and RAM and see if it gives a bleep error on bootup.
If not then it's either the cpu, the motherboard or the PSU.

+1

 

[zimzum42]

I'll have a go at that when I get the chance - thanks guys!

 

[davefb]

Does the mobo have a reset cmos jumper anywhere?

I shorted one of my usb ports and couldn't get a POST or monitor signal...similar symptoms to you. Moved the reset CMOS jumper, powered on, powered off. Moved it back and all systems were go again.


May not work, but worth a go. Found P5B instructions for doing this : Here

i've had problems that end up being the battery... it is pretty much the last thing you think of

 

[ian turner]

Batteries would be unexplained boot up problems and this seems to have been caused by plugging the speakers in at the wrong time. Plus Batteries usually last about 5 years.

 

[zimzum42]

Batteries would be unexplained boot up problems and this seems to have been caused by plugging the speakers in at the wrong time. Plus Batteries usually last about 5 years.

You mean the battery could not be an explanation for the boot up problems?

 

[ian turner]

There were no boot up problems prior to the sudden shutdown and a cmos battery failing won't cause problems
like that.
Odds that you manage to blow up the cmos battery by plugging live speakers into the PC?
It would have taken out something else in the motherboard as well.

 

[2Loose]

You mean the battery could not be an explanation for the boot up problems?

Incredibly unlikely in your case...I wouldn't even entertain it as a potential problem in this instance. Normally, if the battery goes your PC would post and try and boot, but not know the date or time, or even if it had a hard disk or cd rom attached (which is why it wouldn't boot). After giving it this info, it would work and boot ok...until the next reboot and it would have forgotten it all again.

The fact it was working until you plugged in powered speakers and then suddenly dropped dead, sounds like an electrical spike caused something to go wrong, possibly blow.