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My computer problem
Hey!
Ok so I have an old computer, a Dell XPS 400. It's held up for a long time with some minimal upgrades all the while maintaining decent FPS in current MMORPG's. The last upgrade was to a radeon hd7750 which made GW2 run pretty well in boss fights.
anyway, had an electrical storm a couple months ago. computer would not turn on, absolutely nothing happening, not even a light. so i replaced the power supply and am able to get it to turn on but there is no boot. It will run, fans going etc; but no display and I can tell that it is not going through the complete boot just by the sound of it. basically it sounds like it's on but it's not "thinking".
the connections from the power supply to the interior all seem to be plugged into what is needed (non modular) . so i suppose my question is do you gurus think it is the motherboard that got fried? or is it possibly the hard drive? i would think wiith no display that the mother aint seein the graphix card in the pci slot and that is the issue and i will need a new motherboard. in which case i am basically going to just build a new computer salvaging parts from the old.
any thoughts?
mucho thanks 
Comments
Motherboard would be my best guess.
You can check if it's the hard drive by unplugging the hard drive entirely and seeing what happens. (Leave the hard drive mounted in the case, but unplug one end of the SATA data cable that connects it to the motherboard.) If it POSTs normally and then says that it can't find an operating system, then the hard drive is likely the culprit. If unplugging the hard drive doesn't change anything, then the hard drive wasn't the problem in the first place.
^ do what he suggests and if possible see if you can get video from the motherboard. (some mobos have onboard gfx that you can tap in to) could be that the gpu is fried on the card.
so check the back for a video output on the motherboard it self and try that as well.
could be a fried mobo/cpu/gpu or who knows what... electrical storms can cause a world of problems with pcs if you get a surge. (typically a safe choice to power down the rig during a really bad storm just incase..)
good luck sorting the issue though hopefully its a cheap fix and doesnt require an entire rebuild
Had the same thing happen and it ended up being my motherboard. Check power supply first (you already did), motherboard, then ram. Then move on from there. My guess is motherboard as has been previously stated. I'd look into a UPS battery backup for the future, it has saved me a lot of headache.
Best bet is to have someone compatible parts come over and start swapping parts starting with what was mentioned above. Don't go throwing money at it without knowing what is wrong like many other people do lol.
While that is sometimes ideal, depending on how old the computer is, it may be better to just replace it outright. Obviously you don't want to rush to replace a computer that you bought six months ago. But if the computer is already five years old and you were thinking about replacing it soon anyway, then maybe now is the time.
Yep as quiz said, it's better just to replace it i think. I've been meaning to for like two years now and just never got around to it because it just kept performing.
I can't test onboard graphix as it doesn have any, i saw that was one of the things to do as well. thanks though for the suggestion.
alright well, looks like the mobo. anyway, i have a psu and graphix card so that's about 1/4 of the battle. looks like i just have to build a new one.
thanks guys
odds are the power spike killed the PSU and Mobo.
Replace the system. It is very unlikely for the spike to have fried the hard drive, but it's old I would replace it.
Gonna need a new OS also. Get Windows 8 and tweak it to get the start menu back.
If you can afford a few hundred more Intel socket 2011 Ivy bridge will have a very long upgrade cycle.
As others have said, it's likely the mobo.
Vast majority of times a no power, no lights issue is simply a bad PSU or bad MOBO. The very rare time I've seen another issues causing this is a bad expansion card and I've even seen a bad USB device causing a no power on scenario. Not clearing the CMOS can also keep the system in no post but usually you see some sort of light on the board at the very least.
Which ever way, stripping down your board to psu + mobo + cpu and seeing what happens will tell you. In my experience mobo is the most likely thing to get fried if the psu is a quality one (likely not with Dell) but both are likely. Also the vast majority of times the CPU is fine. In fact the CPU (especially if it's Intel) almost never goes bad if fine from manufacturer.
I've worked on thousands of systems and had to replace less than 5 cpu's in pc's in my entire life time (bad techs replace many when not even needed although I have seen 1 or 2 super fried systems). Poor AMD fans may have different experiences.
You stay sassy!
ok thanks tamanous. yeah since i installed a brand new psu and got power but nothing else it looks like the mobo. i did strip down all the extraneous stuff and tried booting and nothing. tried none stick of ram, and one stick of ram in all the slots while booting and never got a boot. also nothing in the usb slots.
i feel naked using this shitty laptop i am typing on
not that my old ass computer was awexome but at least i could play some stuff on it with decent fps! nlol
That depends on your budget. If your budget is such that a Radeon HD 7750 was appropriate, then a Core i5-4670K is probably way out of your budget and something much cheaper like an AMD FX-6300 would be more suitable for you.
Exactly which power supply do you have? If you bought a brand new piece of junk, then you'd want to replace that, too--or return it if you still can.
i purchased a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103013 from newegg for a psu. it's a little low on watts but everything i read about it seemed positive.
please educate me if it was a bad purchase.
I don't know if it's bad enough to be an imminent danger to fry your system, but it's certainly a relic of another era. Look at the New Egg reviews: lots of dates from 2006 and 2007, so the unit is more than seven years old. It doesn't even have the power connectors that you'd want for a modern gaming rig.
If it's not too late to return it, then you definitely should. A modern budget unit for about the same price would be much better:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139049
I'm not necessarily saying that you should buy that unit; a lot depends on your budget. But it would certainly be better than what you bought.
I can't find any real reviews about it - buyer reviews where they post "It turned on" aren't terribly informative, as it could turn on, and still blow up your new motherboard because it has poor power regulation.
I would send it back if you can. 400W is enough for a 7750 and pretty much any CPU, so the wattage isn't the problem at all.
One thing to keep in mind for any future builds is to have it connected to a quality UPS which will usually prevent the issues you had with your current system. They might not be cheap considering they are a just in case investment but as you've experienced first hand what not having one can do I'll assume you can appreciate the value of including it in future PC builds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply
Yeah, do as they say, sounds like the motherboard to me.
Does it do any beeping when you turn it on? Usually the number of beeps indicate the error!
Also, if you cop a decent lightning storm, unplug it from power and phone line, not even a surge board will help from a lightning strike. I have hear of lightning jumping the gap that the surge board provides!
ya man, it sucked. it came out of nowhere in the night, we had a mild prediction of rain but it turned into a boomer when i was sleeping.
agreed, they don't cost much either and can save you a lot of money in the future, if something has happened once after all, it can and probably will, happen again.
no POST so dead mobo, even if the bios was scrambled needing the default reset settings it would still give some power up indications.
Another case of "Power supplies rarely die alone"
Motherboard certainly, almost certainly RAM too.