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[goodcow]

I think I had mentioned earlier that I came home Monday night, and my computer just wouldn't post, nor beep...

So...

- ABIT IC7-G MAXII Socket 478 Intel 875P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Northwood 800MHz FSB Socket 478 Processor Model
BX80532PG3000D - Retail
- Antec NEOPOWER 480 ATX 480W Power Supply - Retail
- CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX1024-3200XLPRO -
Retail

At this new point in time, first I tried this suggestion from the abit newsgroups because I had mentioned that at boot the optical drive access lights remained lit, not blinking, and wouldn't eject.

Gosh that sounds like the ide "reset" line is holding in the active
state. If you disconnect the ide cable (leave power connected) from
your devices you might find that the eject starts working.


If so, the first thing would be to verify that power (all connectors)
is getting to the motherboard. Also if this is the case, the cpu is
probably being held at reset too.


Resetting the bios / cmos is always a good thing to start with when
troubleshooting.

I tried that, and this was my reply from tonight,

HAL,


I tried your suggestion of unplugging all the IDE cables but leaving
power to the optical drives, and I was indeed able to eject both of
them, but still nothing posts.


Prior to doing that I set the jumpers to 2-3 and left it like that for
about ten minutes with the battery out to clear the BIOS, but even
after doing that, and of course putting it back to 1-2, nothing posts,
including while holding INSERT on the keyboard as Abit's manual
recommends.


If the CPU is being held at reset and I've cleared the BIOS (the
battery is still out, am I supposed to put it back in?), what other
suggestions might you have?


Thanks in advance.

Also, one of the RAM sticks may or may not be dead now, as trying to boot with just one stick, in the same DIMM, results in only one of the two actually having just one row of its LED lights turn on. Even with the possibly good RAM, no post, no beeping.

So...

1) If the CPU is being held at reset just like the IDE drives, how do I undo that?
2) Does the culprit seem to be my motherboard?

Any other general suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Comfort_Eagle]

This is an old computer? I would guess the motherboard as the culprit. I just recently had to replace mine for very similar problems. It had a hell of a time starting up. Its hard to tell unless you have components you can switch out at will.

 

[goodcow]

This is an old computer? I would guess the motherboard as the culprit. I just recently had to replace mine for very similar problems. It had a hell of a time starting up. Its hard to tell unless you have components you can switch out at will.

... well, as the specs show, no, it's not old, unless you consider a year or two to be old.

And all of my friends who actually build their own systems use AMD, so I can't just start swapping components out, not to mention the motherboard is of course the one thing you don't want to have to swap out to test.

 

[Comfort_Eagle]

Well, when I said old I just meant it in the " I just built my PC" manner. I think with your tests it has to be either you ram or you mobo, but I think your mobo would go before your ram. Again, thats just my opinion and hard to test unless you have parts to switch with. Sorry, i know im not much help. Ive spent many hours dealing with such a problem.

 

[fart]

strip it down to a minimal booting set of components. if it still doesn't work, swap in known good parts until it does. if all attempts at experimental thought fail, call the amazon help line