Computer won't boot - blank screen!!

Hey,

I was playing Tiger Woods 2007 yesterday and my computer was running a bit jerky which i thought was strange but what I thought was even more weird was when it just turned off; no power, screen black all of a sudden, dead.

My machine is:

AMD 64 3700+ Clawhammer CPU
Asus K8N-e Deluxe Mobo
1gb Kingston RAM
250gb SATA drive
X1600 256mb Radeon Graphics Card

So, my spec isn't THAT bad, quite good i thought but it did just die! Now every time I turn the thing on I get life inside the case but nothing on screen (not even a bleep from the hard drive to say it's alive - though I can hear it spinning).

I've spent a while now taking out parts, blasting them with compressed air to remove dust, putting them back in, testing, retesting, re-retesting and so on. I've tried a friends graphics card ( i burned my last one out video editing and playing games! so checked this first!) and have tried different memory in it too in all the available DIMM slots so I know it's neither of these. I've looked at the processor and no pins are bent, no signs of overheating, the motherboard looks ok, i've tried booting from an old hard drive that was installed in the same system a while back (even though when I was doing this I though "well even if it was the hard drive I should still get life from the BIOS atleast!").

The only thing that I think it could be is the CPU or motherboard but don't see how and I don't want to go out and buy anymore because I am poor (!!!) but will do so if I have to. I'll take it to a repair shop if needs be but I hate doing that because of male pride or whatever (i've built a lot of computers and managed to solve the problems that have come up with all of them so far).

Also, as I can't tell what's going on because the screen is black I got on my friends computer to see if my files were still available on my home network...they are not. I thought that atleast if I can get to my files then I know it's something like my graphics card or even monitor causing the problem, but like I say, that doesn't work either.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE throw me some ideas i'll be really greatful.

Pete

 

I do - saying that it has been making a weird whirring noise whenever I turn the thing on every time. It's a 500W thing and only 6 months old but i'll give it a go, thanks. back in 10 mins!!!!

 

funny but you got almost the same system with me!
To the thing. It could be the PSU. What brand and wattage is it? If it is low quallity or old maybe it freaked out. Was the VGA overclocked or anything?

oops. replies came while I was typing

 

no overclocking, it scares me incase it all dies and I have to buy new stuff!! I got the PSU from ebuyer for about £10/$20...not the best, actually probably the worst money can come buy. My friend has bought a new computer and we made it yesterday so i'm going to take his PSU for a test drive now, back soon! Cheers guys

 

OK - it's not the PSU!

Dammit, I put my friends PSU in and turned it on and still get nothing...but I also get the usual whirring noise from somewhere - obviously not the PSU like I thought it was at first. It can't be the hard drive because the whirring has always been there on other HDDs, the graphics card is quite new I don't think it's that, which makes me think it's the heatsink on the CPU - it's a stock one, but i've never had any problems with my CPU.

This is annoying me.

 

I'll give it a go, cheers - does that include the CPU?!

 

lol of course not. Tim wants you to try to boot with only what's necessary.

 

haha I thought it was quite strange having no CPU! I used my friends heatsink for my CPU and the whirring noise has stopped so there was definately something wrong with the fan on the heatsink (I think) - but I thought if the CPU got too hot the computer would be set in the BIOS to turn off and wait to cool and I haven't told it not to. Hmm, looks like it's either the CPU or Mobo then, what do you lot think? Cheers for all this help by the way, I WOULD buy you all a beer if I could!