Hardware Frustration - Main Sage DOA

[mightyt]

I have had a bizarre series of event and am dumbfounded...

It’s Saturday, March 10th ... I realized that though I had applied the DST OS patch to my main Sage Server, I hadn't done so for Java. So, since I have an analog TV I remote controlled in and upgraded Java. While I was at it I shared out some of the media drives I neglected to do in the past. Everything was normal so far. I disconnected my remote control session and rebooted the server. Next thing I know, it gets to the XP logo screen, then jumps to a blue screen and reboots. Once again back to the XP logo, blue screen and reboot. It did this over and over and over. Of course it was too fast for me to pick up on the blue screen error! I couldn't see it anyway ... again analog.

So, I powered down, yanked it out of my entertainment center and brought it in to my office where I could direct connect to a monitor. Being down this road a few times over the years on other systems, I expected to just research the error and end up booting from the XP CD, go in to repair mode and copy over some likely corrupt boot files.

Well, I hooked everything up, went to power up ... and nothing! ... Flat nothing!! ... No case fans … No hard drives spinning up ... NOTHING. SO, I tried pulling the video card and dropping another in for fun and still nada .... !!!

I don't get it ... I only put this system together a year ago. I can't tell if it's the power supply because it is an Antec Phantom (thus no fans, no noise) so I can't tell if it is the problem. I will say, when power is connected it does light up a green light on the motherboard??

Anyway ... not sure what is going on or if the sequence of events is coincidence or lead to something that makes sense. I was hoping not to have to completely rip this thing apart piece by piece, but fear I may have to.
Before I do, I thought I would see if anyone had any magic bullets!

I hate Sage down time … and as you can imagine … the family is not happy …

Thanks, T.

[Razillian]

Pull any addon cards you have in the system and, if it has one, boot with the built in video. It sounds like you just had a driver conflict of some sort, but when you moved the computer something came loose; a cable, memory stick, processor, something. So your best bet is to get it down to as simple a system as possible and go from there. Not exactly magic bullets, more like a good blunt hammer.

[rickgillyon]

It's also possible your bluescreens were due to your hard drive being on its way out, and bad hard drives often get much worse when you move them. See if it will start with a different HDD.

[flavius]

Looks like you're not getting any power - either the mobo is not getting it from the PSU or the mobo itself has a problem.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by flavius

Looks like you're not getting any power - either the mobo is not getting it from the PSU or the mobo itself has a problem.

The OP says the LED on the board is on, so most likely bad HDD, bad ram, bad board, loose connector etc.

[flavius]

It still can be the PSU.

[mattdcknsn]

Easiest thing to try is unplug (power side) the HDs, and try and power it on. If it powers on, then the HD is probably bad. If it still doesnt power on then the PS might be bad.

I actually just lost my PS on my server this morning, the smell when I came downstairs was a good morning wake up call. Good luck.

[lobosrul]

If you havent tried it already, unseat your ram. Turn the computer on, then back off. Re-seat the ram and turn on.

If you have more than one ram module try each one seperately.

EDIT: you should still get a POST screen if your HDD's are bad... maybe try unplugging them.

[AngelofDeth]

Yeah, reseat RAM, and video card, take anything else out. If you still have no power, there is a method of "shorting" a couple of pins on the motherboard power connector to get it to power on w/o a motherboard. I would do this with either a HD or optical drive connected. If that doesn't work, obviously a bad power supply.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by AngelofDeth

If you still have no power, there is a method of "shorting" a couple of pins on the motherboard power connector to get it to power on w/o a motherboard. I would do this with either a HD or optical drive connected. If that doesn't work, obviously a bad power supply.

You do this by shorting the green wire to any black wire on the power connector for the motherboard. Having said that, I have had a couple of occasions where the PS would fire up by shorting the start circuit but wouldn't start under a full load. The green LED on the motherboard was working as well. I thought a number of other components were at fault before tracking it down the first time. I even replaced the motherboard. In my case they were Antec Neo power supplies that failed after about a year in two separate computers. Here is a link to a brief post I wrote about this in another thread. Geogecko and I took that discussion offline, but it did turn out to be his power supply at fault as well. My vote is for a bad power supply.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

you should still get a POST screen if your HDD's are bad... maybe try unplugging them.

I have seen a bad hdd preventing a post screen in the past. Surely everyone has spares in the house for every component on the PC...