No POST/No video: 2 motherboards, 3 power supplies, 2 video cards

adarryl

I am about to scream on this one so if you have some ideas, I am all eyes and ears.

My Gigabyte 870A-UD3 with X4 955 started having lockups and failed boots. I ran memtest and found numerous errors making me think RAM is the problem but now I am not so sure. The RAM is Patriot DDR3 1333 2X2 gb and I have an RMA request submitted.

After completing memtest in the past 48 hours, the system has gone from booting once in a while to not at all. No POST beeps, no video and the fans (heatsink and 2 different video cards) rev and change rpm or warble in tone. Pulling the guts out to my test bench, I switched out the processor, hsf, and RAM from my GA-870A-UD3 to my GA-MA790XT-UD4P but get the same behavior. I also switched out the power supply with 2 others with also no change. I tried two different video cards with no change though both of their cooling fans warbled at idle no matter which motherboard or power supply was used. I then ran one of the motherboards with no RAM installed. Same behavior: no beeps and warbling fan speeds. ARGH!! And YES, I cleared the CMOS too. Western Digital SATA drive passed WD Lifeguard extended test right after memtest was run.

So here are the remaining questions:
1. Is it possible that the RAM has so badly failed that it is causing all these other symptoms? It is the only DDR3 I have on hand so I can't do a swap and test.

2. Could the processor have been dying (now dead) and causing all of these symptoms including the failed memtest?

3. Something else?

HALP!!! and THANKS!!!

SPECS:

-Gigabyte 870A-UD3 OR Gigabyte 790XT-UD4P
-AMD X4 955 C3 with Scythe SCKTN-3000 hsf
-Enermax FMA II ATX12V Ver 2.0 535W OR Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power OR Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL-S 600W
-Patriot G Series ‘Sector 5’ Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
-Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0
-Zotac GeForce GTS 250 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 OR Sparkle GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
-2 SATA Optical drives
-USB card reader
-Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

primesuspect

Take the CPU out entirely, and try to turn the system on. What happens?

adarryl

Thanks for the reply!!! Good idea! Just did that and got the same thing. No beeps and video card fan is surging/warbling. Dead CPU? If so, do you think my memtest results were bogus and the cpu is actually the culprit?

primesuspect

The CPU may indeed be dead. I tend to use the process of elimination in weird situations like this: so it's not the PSU, it's not teh motherboard, and it's not the GPU, what's left?

adarryl

Gremlins? What do you think about the RAM situation?

Also, I have one last card to be played. I can put the X4 955 in my X3 720 motherboard and see if she boots. Film at 11.

primesuspect

Yeah let me know how that goes.

Can't really say, but I suspect that a dying CPU could probably cause memtest errors, among other things; especially since the memory controller is on-die

Thrax

A board with a dead CPU is not likely to produce POST codes. A board with dead RAM will.

adarryl

Thanks fellas! Well, as my favorite comic, Louis Black, would put it, SON-OF-A-BITCH!!!!! Yeah, she's dead, the CPU that is. I just swapped the X4 955 with my X3 720 in my main machine and NOTHING. No beeps, no POST, no nothing just fans spinning. Put my 720 back in and its back up and running. Time to RMA a 955 with AMD. I don't think I will RMA the RAM at this point. It would seem to be an innocent, just guilty by association. :/

adarryl

Just got off the phone with AMD to arrange an RMA. Turns out the 955 has had some memory controller problems. That would explain what I was seeing before it went belly-up. Anyway, the RMA process was painless and I should be back up and running in a couple of weeks.

primesuspect

Nice

adarryl

Wow!!! Just got my RMA from AMD and they upgraded me to an X4-965!!! Major kudos to AMD!

primesuspect

Nice!