PC won't startup properly fans spin but no bleeps

[Pyroman]

Hey there,

 

We've been donated about 30 PC's and so far most of them work however about half a dozen of them refuse to work, when i start them up the fans spin, lights come on but the screen stays blank (no signal to monitor, amber light) and no bleeps are heared.

 

Even if i take out the RAM it doesn't go crackers and bleep it just powers up and sits there, i can strip them down for bits but would be nice to have 6 extra working PC's.

 

They all suffer from the same problem

 

Help?

[Joanne]

motherboards...

 

I had one go and it showed all those symptoms. Replaced it and now the machine is fine

[Gerry]

Probably motherboard, but check PSU just in case.

[tech_guy]

Have you checked all the gubbins are still inside? Donated pcs - some of the bits in these six might have gone walkies....

[Michael]

The fact it's not beeping means it's not POSTing (Power on Self Test). I agree what's been said already that it's more than likely the motherboard.

[hotwired007]

remove and clean and then reseat everything... more than likely dodgy mobo's otherwise...

[FN-GM]

I would check the memory, we have a few machines don't bleep when there is a memory problem.

[PeterW]

As per above posts probably poorly main boards, check the ATX power connector and especially the 2x2 pin ATX 12v connector (if they have them).

[FN-GM]

Change the BIOS battery.

 

I've seen a few boards not fire up when the battery is flat.

 

Good suggestion

[witch]

I agree about the battery and the psu - I have had machines with the same symptoms and I thought it couldn't be the psu as the fans etc were on but in the end it was.

Worth a try anyway

[rhyds]

My first port of call is the PSU every time, after that's been proven good I check the mobo

[Pyroman]

Thanks, i'll report back

[Pyroman]

Haha make that 7 machines, the one i've been using to image the rest has just fallen on it's arse and now refuses to start =D oh happy days!

[tri_94]

Hi there, a few things to check.

 

1st Memory.

2nd Connection to Motherboard.

3rd CPU and heat sink on correct.

4th BIOS battery.

5th try disconnecting any Firewire or Usb ports that have plug in headers.

 

cheers

nick

[flashsnaps]

No beeps doesn't always mean alot - we had a few old machines giving to us, which had the small speaker which makes the beep removed!

 

Try starting it up with the hard drive unplugged.

I would then trial and error, unplug everything, add it back one piece at a time.

[ricki]

I have one on the bench at the moment and it does exactly the same and I know the hard drives gone. When some machines boot up they check the drives and if they get no response they carry on. But if they get a partial response they get stuck.

 

Disconnect the hard drive and see if it will go into the bios.

 

Just an idea.

 

Richard

[hotwired007]

Any news on this did you solev any of the problems?

[Pyroman]

They're dead!

 

Being as they were donated PC's and there's some still to come i'm going to put them on the "needs fixing in the future" pile, i think it's the mobo i unplugged *everything* bar the power supply and took out the cmos battery and went from there plugging things in one by one and tried with a known working power supply.

 

In short, they're dead, however during stripping one down i noticed they had no thermal paste on the CPU atall haven't tried it with a known working CPU, might be worth a look