Stumped!

PinFingerPinFinger
edited November 2007 in Hardware
My computer recently stopped working. Heres a little history.
Old hard drive was making noise.
Bought new one and transferred all to new.
Installed new software for hdd. (this included a video converter.)
Video card crapped out.
Bought new card and installed.
At this point everything is working fine.
I decided to convert a avi file to Divx format using the above mentioned software.(from seagate)
It was taking an extremely long time.
I decide to let it take its course and let it run over night.
The next morning the screen was blue and blank.
Has never booted again.
Hangs at "Detecting Ide Drives ..."

course of actions
Tried to disconnect cd and dvd drives.(nada)
replaced ide cable.(nada)
tried to enter edit mode before going to detect ide drives. (hangs)
Swapped out the drive with the old one... same thing.
What to Do???
Im no expert but there seems to be a problem. I have been through many forums to no avail. Its seems that no one has had the exact problem that i am facing. Can some one help?

I cant find an exact replacement for my mobo. Its 4 years old. In human years thats ancient I guess. I have ordered one that I think will work but it has a different chipset. I dont think that matters at this point.

Help me please obi won your my only hope!

Comments

  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited November 2007
    First thing that comes to mind is ram.

    1st question.. What motherboard, listing components would help.

    Do you have a speaker connected or does the mobo have one on the board?
    If yes to above, remove all ram from the system, power up the PC, does the speaker beep its head off?
    If yes, cycle through all sticks of ram and see if 1 allows the system to boot properly.
    If that fails, clear the CMOS (see manual for jumper location) and again test each ram module.
    If all that fails....mobo is possiblity. Try the other IDE controller (meaning connect the hard drive to the other channel) If still not detected, then test the voltages on the PSU, maybe you have a rail out of spec (Yellow = 12V, Red = 5V, Orange = 3.3V.. all should be within 5% to be considered OK) causing issues with the hard drive or possibly even frying it.
    Pictures here of where to measure voltages: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7069

    To test the PSU without running the PC, this is how you "jumpstart" a PSU:

    Disconnect the PSU from everything (wall, mobo, etc) ...then plug the unit back into the wall socket and connect a couple hard drives to a molex connector to provide a load.
    Now....with the switch on the back of the PSU in the off position...locate the Dark Green wire in the ATX connector and using a paper clip (or something similar) "jump it" to any of the black wires in the connector....Now flip the switch on the back to On.......the PSU should start up and run.
    Pictures of the jumpstart are here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5577

    Hope that helps.
  • PinFingerPinFinger
    edited November 2007
    Computer was purchased at Fry's
    its a Fry's 7253H
    P4 2.53 ghz
    came with 512 megabytes ram (recently upgraded by 1 gig for total 1.5 gig)
    motherboard is Mb-L4S5ADX made by ECS Elitegroup
    478 pin cpu
    has xp home
    2 cd/dvd drives
    came with 120 gig hdd replaced with a 320 gig
    installed a new Radeon x1050 video card
  • PinFingerPinFinger
    edited November 2007
    I just tried the second channel of the IDE controller and it hangs. While it was booting I was holding on to the hdd and I could feel it accessing, it ground like 4 consecutive times then apparently gave up.
    As a side note, I dont understand how it could be RAM. It does a RAM test before the IDE and it sees all the RAM and then continues to IDE Controller test
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