Hi. My pc wont boot up. By this i mean the motherboard wont boot up. From initial switch on the fans kick in, the power button flashes once, the cd drive light comes on and thats about it. No hdd / floppy or cd activity...........Nothing.
I have an Asus vintage board if thats any help. i have the motherboard user book and cd but wont even consider any actions without advice

many thanks in advance for assistance or advice

Dave

Just an update
i found some threads stating a simular problem and have done and found the following.
the led on the motherboard lights up ok.
disconnected power and ide cables from all devices
removed sound and video cards
removed and replaced all other connecting cables from psu
all other external devices disconnected

With all the above disconnected the hdd activity light comes on but is quite dim but the front panel power light is still not on with all devices reconnected its the hdd activity light that flickers briefly on initial switch on

to me this sound like a power issue so is there a way to identify which pin carries what voltage from the psu conside there are about 30 wires coming out of it.

Regards
Dave

Here's a pin-out for ATX Power Supplies, however just using a volt meter is not a reliable means of testing. There's no load on it.

A Power Supply Tester can be picked up for approx $15.00 : $20.00 (US) at most computer shops. These test the unit under a load.

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/courses/p...nc-pinouts.htm

NOTE: Any colour coding may be different depending on where you are in the world.

Thanks for the post Dan, much appreciated.

Update no. 2
I removed the psu and had it tested on another machine and i worked all day without a hitch.

Next im going to replace the psu and again remove all devices, and ive been told to remove my ram and try a switch on to rule out ram fault

Q.Should i get a 'ram beep' with no ram installed

Q. could it be a processor fault or am i looking more towards motherboard

Q. can i add my hdd to another machine which has xp installed as a slave to recover data in my documents.

regards
Dave

Have a look at this article;
http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/34.html

No RAM should produce either one long continuous beep, or evenly spaced continuous beeps. It depends on the motherboard. In either case, the system won't boot.

At this point, it could be either the CPU or the motherboard. It could also be conflicting IRQ's, or a faulty component. (hard disk, CDROM, peripheral add-in card (NIC, etc.))

Yes, you can slave your hard disk into another machine to retrieve data. Ensure you get the hard disk jumpers set correctly. Here's a guide which covers IDE, SATA, and SCSI hard disks.

Be aware that you may not be able to access some administrator level directories, files etc while this drive is slaved. This may be of some help.

Thanks again Dan!
update 3
Powers Supply good.
having removed everything bar the cpu and 1 ram stick (swapped and changed) its still no go. no ram beep (found a sounder on motherboard) no power light nothing. I have not touched the processor is it something else that deserves a jiggle?

Regards
dave

Given the information thus far, and if there's ~no beeps~ at all, I'd start suspecting the motherboard.

The best way to check these things (quickly) is by swapping out either the CPU or the motherboard. If the CPU works in another motherboard (acceptable for that CPU type etc) , then..............

have spoken to the guy at my local computer shop as since i have had a fair ammount of gear from him over the years hes going to try my processor and board and do me a cut price replacement job

have managed to back up all my data

Thanks for the guidance and links Dan

Best wishes
Dave

You're welcome. Please let us know how things turn out.