PSU died, replaced it, now more trouble...

Okay, I replaced my Power Supply under warranty (Antec) after plugging in a working power supply to verify that was the problem. I just put in the replacement from Antec last nite. Everything fires up fine, but I can't get any output on my monitor, DVI or VGA. Not entirely sure what to do. I get some beeping noises when the DVI is plugged in, two quick beeps, then pause, then 8 steady beeps. So something isn't entirely right there I suppose. Not sure what else to try. Any suggestions?


Dustin

 

okay, a little update here. I got it to boot without the beeping now. It shows all the black startup screens with all the info, then to the windows logo, then to black screen where it just sits. No mouse pointer or anything. Just sits at the black screen. Now what? I chose my boot device as the only hard drive I have hooked up right now.

 

I presume you actually get a single beep. This is what you should get for a normally booting PC. Does it boot from your Windows CD?

 

hey,

yeah, i do get a single beep now, and it appears to be booting okay. but then i just get a black screen forever that does nothing. i haven't tried booting from my windows cd yet. i'm hoping a reformat will not be necessary. is there a way to boot from the hard drive alongside of the windows cd?

dustin

 

OK. A single beep is good. The fact that you then get stuck on a black screen almost certainly (to my mind) means a video driver problem. That is why I asked if you had tried a boot from the CD (or even a bootable floppy) because that would use a standard VGA driver and would at least tell you whether the prblem was software (driver) of hardware (video card). I would still plump for the former on what you have said so far.

 

Will your pc boot into safe mode?

 

Okay, I don't think I have the option of booting into safe mode. It says F2 for setup and F11 for Boot Menu. If I go into the boot menu I get to pick what device to boot from. Not sure what to do. I've tried putting in a windows cd and booting from the cd-rom, it says 'press any key to boot.....' and i press keys but it doesn't boot from the cd-rom. Do I have to use an old school keyboard (PS/2 or whatever)? I'm using USB keyboard now it doesn't seem like its registering when I'm hitting 'any key'. After like a few seconds it just does what its been doing the whole time and shows the windows logo with the load bar below it, and then proceeds to a black screen where it sits. I'm stuck. Thanks guys.


Dustin

 

After the 'beep' but before the Windows logo pops up start pressing F8. That should take you to the options menu from where you can select start in Safe Mode. Once there, uninstall your video driver and then reboot as normal. Since there is no driver Windows should go to default and load standard VGA drivers.

If that fails then their is an issue with your GPU switching in to 3D (high power) mode. When your PC boots it should start in 2D (low power) mode when it gets to the Windows Logo it should do a check of it's 3D (high power.) You usually notice this because the fan on the card suddenly spins up and becomes much nosier.

If it isn't doing this then

a). The card got damaged during whatever problem took out your old PSU
b). The card isn't getting enough power. Check your connections and ensure EVERYTHING is seated correctly.

 

Did you possibly forget to plug in the video cards extra power connector when hooking up the new supply? You can use the default video reset that overclockers use when things go wrong by holding the CTRL key while starting the computer and keep holding it thru the boot. That will reset all your graphics settings to default.

I once hooked up a video card (agp) that had a regular 4 pin molex connector for extra power and because I had to use a splitter to reach it, I didn't realize I had plugged the splitter into one of those fan only connections with just a black and yellow wire. Obviously I had issues until I found what I had done. Look around, make sure all your power connectors got connected. I just pray that the bad supply didn't take out your video chipset on its way out. Its not unheard of for a supply to blow, and cause a spike that destroys the motherboards chipset.

 

Okay, a bit more information on the situation, which I still haven't fixed. It will start up and eventually freeze. If I don't have a keyboard/mouse plugged in, it doesn't even warn me? Doesn't it normally say 'no keyboard mouse detected' press any key or some button? Also I've removed the graphics card to see if I can get it running off of the native on board graphics. I've tried the F8 trick to try to enter a different boot mode, with no luck also. Also when I try to run one of the cd roms it says to hit any key to load from disc, but i hit any key with no response from the cd-rom then i believe it boots from the hard drive. this thing is a mess. appreciate the help.

 

Well, it has been fixed now. Fiddled around with taking the graphics card, restarting. Then putting back in and plugging monitor into graphics card and it worked. Also messed with a boot disc maybe that had something to do with it. All is well now. Thanks for everyone's input.

Dustin

 

Glad you've got it fixed. And thanks for telling us. :cool