A bad motherboard?

[Jaquio]

Hello, I am new to these fourms an I am looking for some input.. I am wondering, what would cause a motherboard to not display any video to the monitor? Or how could you tell if it was bad.. I have a Syntax 8601a motherboard I got from a friend, he said it worked fine but when he brought it over it didn't work at all. Any idea?

[Scott]

Welcome...

Can you tell us any other symptoms? For instance, when a motherboard boots up, it does a POST (Power On Self Test). If it determines any failures, it will emit a diagnostic beep pattern over the internal speaker. Otherwise, you will typically get a single, solitary beep indicating everything is OK. Are you hearing anything? If not, make sure there's a speaker properly attached.

Does the numlock or capslock key indicator lights on the keyboard light up? That's an indication of some progress.

Or is this thing just completely dead? If it acts completely dead, you may need to look at the power supply and the associated attachments. You said your friend brought over a motherboard -- do you mean he brought over the circuit board with the CPU, memory, expansion slots, or he brought over a complete case with power supply, fans, hard drives, etc.? Sorry for asking the obvious questions, I'm just trying to help narrow this down for you...

Reply back!

[Jaquio]

The questions are fine, anytning to get the motherboard up an running.

He brought it over, the board an ram that was with it the processor isn't changeable it's mounted on the board. He also gave me the power supply, he kept the drives an everything else though.

When I push the power button, the keyboard lights(Num,Caps an Scroll) light up, but then nothing. I tried what you suggested at first, the whole beep thing.. But then noticed there is no speaker attacked to it, there is a space for it but there isn't one on it.

If you need anymore information please just ask.

[Scott]

OK, so here's some things to check into...

How do you know your monitor is good? Can you try it on another system to be sure it's working? Don't assume anything...

He gave you a power supply, but is there a case too? If so the case should have a built in speaker. In any case, in anything you do below, MAKE SURE YOU ARE GROUNDED! Do this on a table on a hard, non-carpeted floor preferably, and touch metal on the powersupply when it is plugged into the wall to discharge any static electricity. Also, make sure the system is off when you reseat boards or anything like that.

If the monitor is connected to a video port on the motherboard, ask your friend if there used to be a card. If so, he could have turned off the onboard video with a jumper on the motherboard. If that is the case, you need a manual. There's a remote chance you could find one on the internet, but start with your friend first.

If it is connected to a card, turn everything off, then try reseating the card, or moving it to a different slot if there is another one that the video card can fit in (some video cards use an AGP slot, and there will be at most only one of those).

If you can get a speaker connected to the speaker output terminal, you should get a code of some sort. You will also need the manual for this too, because the codes from the speaker are not universal. Any little old speaker with two wires would do. Steal the speaker out of your friends alarm clock. Just kidding. You will need one sooner or later, so maybe now is the time to invest in a new case for your computer. Or, just buy one at Radio Shack.

You could also try reseating the memory. If there are multiple memory sticks, take all but one out, try it, then rotate through them one at a time to see if one or more memory sticks are bad.

Let me know what happens!

[Jaquio]

Well thanks for your help. :)


See, the motherboard isn't bad just the onboard video. I have the motherboards manual an there is no jumper for the onboard video. An there was no video card in there when he gave it to me, he also said that he didn't use one.

So I went to a local computer shop, an found an old video card for $10, I bought it took it home slapped it in, an it worked. So the onboard video is bad on the motherboard, not the motherboard its self. Question is, is there a way I could that problem? Or is it gone for good?


Well...........

It was working, but when I turned it back on to try to see if it would run an OS. Nothing showed up.. Did the same as before.. Why? :(

[Scott]

Well, the onboard video might also be disabled in the BIOS setup. The reason for this, or for a jumper, is so you can run video from an add-on card and not have any conflicts. Unless it has been intentionally disabled, and you can find out how that was done, I would just say forget it and go with the add-on video card. Onboard video isn't usually all that spectacular anyway, usually just low-end stuff. Trying to fix it at this point probably isn't worth the time or money.

I'm trying to understand your last message now. Are you saying you added the new video card, everything worked, then you turned it off and on, and now the new video card isn't working either? I don't have an explanation for that, unless you are dealing with a flaky video cable or monitor.

[Jaquio]

Ok, well I will just stick with my video card then, will just have to buy a better one.

But my last message, where it worked an then didn't.. My monitor works fine I tested it on my other computer. But when I hooked it back up to that motherboard, it didn't. It worked when I first put it in, but then I turned it off, then went to go turn it back on once I got a new HDD an it didn't turn on.. What the hell?

I just cannot seem to figure it out, I mean, it works one moment then the next it don't.. :( Not sure what could have happened from when it worked to now.. :(