Pc won't POST

[ryanbatc 12,775]

Hey guys - my son was playing around behind my pc earlier today (he's 2, wears fleece PJ's) and my wife told me it won't turn on now, it just power cycled and the fan turns on then off, it's like a repeating cycle.

 

I havent been home yet - maybe resetting CMOS would help?

 

Any ideas?

[vc10man 732]

Should not be a CMOS thing if you have had it powered on for considerable periods.

 

Call her and tell her to disconnect everything, bar the keyboard and the mouse, and see if it makes a POST beep. If it does not, then it needs looking into.

[odourboy 1,288]

Hopefully his fleecy jammies didn't generate a static shock which zapped it into oblivion. GPU issues have driven my PC into a state where it wouldn't POST. Possibly he knocked the HDMI cable loose so it's shorted or N/C'd a couple of pins or (less likely) your GPU itself? Fully power down (power supply switch), make sure your monitor cable is well seated, then power up... fingers crossed?

[vc10man 732]

Very good line of thinking there, odourboy. Did not think of that fleece connection. Hope it all ends well.

[ryanbatc 12,775]

"Darn honey, I need to buy new pc parts"

 

Lol

 

Still at work I'll try it when I get home

[vc10man 732]

"Darn honey, I need to buy new pc parts"

 

Lol

 

Still at work I'll try it when I get home

Can you not call her to try and establish if it is a odourboy  suggested, a GPU blow-out? That way you'd be forearmed because if you do get home, and it is a GPU blow-out, you'd still be in the no POST situation your wife currently is in.

[ryanbatc 12,775]

I tried removing the GPU still won't POST

 

Tried clearing CMOS no difference

 

There's no mobo speaker so I don't hear any beeps

[Howellerman 104]

Ryan, you have my sympathies. I took my son into my computer performance lab when he was young, and he just touched one of the serves. Took me 30 minutes to get it back to life...

[JRBarrett 3,034]

I remember your issues with static electricity last winter. I'm afraid your system may have received one "zap" too many. The kind of damage that high static electricity can produce in computer hardware tends to be cumulative...

[ryanbatc 12,775]

If this was your pc what would you guys do?

 

A friend is coming over today he's bringing RAM and other stuff ... We'll see if we can get her going.

One thing to note - when I pull all the RAM out the powered stayed on for about 15 sec as opposed to 3.

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi,

 

I had this problem many years ago, when the reboot happened it was in the process of testimg ram memory... Turned out I had a bad stick, if you have more than one stick of ram try one stick at a time, you may be able to find the bad one if that's the problem.

[odourboy 1,288]

It sounds like you've got a plan Ryan. The 'engineering' approach is to divide and conquer - isolating components until you find the faulty one. Is your friend bringing a PC power supply?  In theory, with just a working mobo, a VGA monitor and a power supply, you should be able to at least see some action. I've never been confronted with a totally dead PC, so I afraid I can't offer much else.

[gmoneyprs 2]

I just have a hard time imagining that your son could have caused a detrimental static discharge from outside of the computer case. I saw that you live in MN and considering that you likely have the heat on constantly (which dries the air considerably), combined with fleece PJs, would make for a great opportunity to generate some static electricity. However, the case itself should be grounded. If he bumped and shorted the PSU--which, in my mind, is one of the few critical components that has an external exposure to the "outside world"--the computer shouldn't even be able to turn on... at all.

 

All of this aside, typically a computer won't POST because, unfortunately, one or more of the three most important components (CPU, RAM, and MoBo) aren't working. Having a buddy bring over some RAM (hopefully that he's tested and is working) is a great start. Getting a hold of a "spare" CPU or motherboard may not be as easy but the RAM is a great start...

[ryanbatc 12,775]

Yeah we're gonna go over it with a fine tooth comb. He's done way more builds than me - more expertise than me too.

 

I'll let everyone know what we find.

[KingGhidorah 209]

Ryan, I glanced at your specs and wondered if your Gigabyte motherboard has a debug LED? If you load it up with the case open you will see a little code displayed on the board as each initialization step happens, so you can see how far it gets or what error code gets thrown out.