Very Confused

[jamesr007]

Hi there,
my problem simply put is that my motherboard * a P4P800* no longer seems to be sending out a display signal to the AGP slot...i think :(

i thought i may hav fried my motherboard and i have examined it properly...and there seems too b no burn or scorch marks on any of the components..then again i am not an expert on identifing these kinds of things...but im assuming they would b quite obvious. :P

the onli thing i can say is that near one of the mounting screwholes on the bottom left corner of the actual case...there seems to b evidence of burns on the one screw hole :S

when the computer is plugged in with the PowerSupply "on" the LED does light up and when switched on the HDD does make the usual noise of it whizzing around... the CPU works fine and the ram is good too *these have been tested on a P4PS800-MX SE motherboard*

another thing that may b of some useful information
was that i was constantly swapping HDDs via the IDE cable and not the recommended HDD front loading slots. one day while i was not home my brother turned on the comp but it didnt turn on...like usual...

ALSO once the crash happened one of the HDD did not like the new motherboard and decided to lock its self down with not even the most expoerenced of computer technitians able to get bak to making it work properly...it has been qouted as the most evil HDD of all time... :S

does anyone have any idea what might have happened?

[Chaky]

First of all: Fried mobo won't have actual burn-marks. Finger-touch is sometimes enough to render your mobo dead.

Those burn-marks you see can be nothing more than dust and oxidation. If there were power discharges that can make visible burn-marks, believe me, you wouldn't be posting a Q here. You would KNOW it's dead.

From what I can see, you don't get any POST or beeps.

Could be couple of things:

- VGA (you didn't say if you tested it on another machine)
- Memory (can make system not post - try removing it)
- PSU (try another machine's PSU on yours)
- and (off course) dead mobo

For the HDD... Check the jumpers on it. Most HDD's have jumpers to set it on different modes (no. of cylinders, CHS, normal, LBA...). LBA is the standard. All other mods are out-dated. Also mind the master - slave configuration.
There are BIOS settings that can be modified to suite the HD's capabilities. If they were set manually incorrect, the HD won't work. Best choice is to set all on "auto". If that fails, try disabling the all the enhanced stuff regarding data transfer (set it on PIO 0 mode). It's sort of "safe mode". If all that fails, it's not evil.... it's dead.

Q's:
Is the HD being reported in BIOS at all?
Did you test the memory on another machine?


Note:
If you have 2 HD's in one machine, and both are bootable, it can make a conflict. To have a bootable HD it must have an active partition. Some machines don't like having 2 active partitions.

Some HDD's tend to be unreadable on one machines after being partitioned on another. Actually, it is not the HD thing. It's an IDE controller thing.