[Smashed]

First of all hello everyone =]

Okay very odd fault.

So I've always built my own computers for like the past 6 years now never had an issue until recently.

the problem started when the computer would fail to boot up. The fans would come on, motherboard lights would come on everything seemed to have power but now image on my screen. In my utter frustration at spending hours trying to fix the issue I gave my computer an almighty whack. I kid you not it finished booting and started running 100% perfectly. Until I rebooted it same issue again so gave it another whack and it booted.

Fine, must be a loose cable. Stripped every thing out and rebuilt the pc again double and triple checking cables. Still have this issue with it needing a kick to start.

I left it at that for a few months but around 2 months a go not even a kick would start it up. So I stripped it did a selective start up removing components as I went but still had no luck when i was down to the bare essentials;

• Motherboard
• CPU
• Graphics card
• RAM
• PSU
• Monitor

I tried different monitors with no luck. So I gave in and did something I've never done and paid an "expert" to have a look for me. Turns out to be quite a nice chap and told me that it could either be my motherboard or CPU (he did not have a way to test the CPU) He also told me that if it was the CPU I would have started to notice diminishing effects in performance which I did not.

His theory was that with thermal expansion of the copper strips in the motherboard a hairline crack that may not have been a problem had fatigue with the heat cycles a pc has gone through and failed this made perfect sense to me and sounded perfectly reasonable and I as a bit annoyed at myself for not thinking of it (I'm a mechanical engineer).

So I sent the motherboard back to the place I bought it www.aria.co.uk who sent it back to ASUS who then deemed it broken and I got a full refund. Excellent, making some progress. So I buy a new motherboard nice shiney gigabyte one this time. recieved it today. I built it outside of the case, just in case it failed and I'd gone through the effort of screwing it in etc. Using just the neccesary components.

• Motherboard
• CPU
• Graphics card
• RAM
• PSU
• Monitor

Power on, and hoorah nothing happens....exactly the same symptoms as before. I'm at a complete loss.

What else could it possibly be?

I spoke the the expert that helped me diagnose the problem and he said he tested everything and it was all functioning apart from motherboard and CPU which he could not test.

According to him if the CPU was fried then the board wouldn't fire up. But I still get the fans and everything going.

Just a run down of the components I'm using;

• Antec P180 Case
• Geforce 8800GTS 640mb
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Processor
• 2GB Corsair DDR2 RAM
• Enermax 650w Modular PSU
• Asus P5N32-E
• Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R

[Hybr!d]

Have you changed the PSU for a new one since the first fault occurred, prior to the strip down etc?

[Smashed]

Originally Posted by Hybr!d

Have you changed the PSU for a new one since the first fault occurred, prior to the strip down etc?

That was one of the things the guy at the computer shop did and it still would not boot.

[Razer]

I would try getting a computer of a similar age and testing each component individually. Make 100% sure when you assemble it that there are not shorts or anything like that. You might have been unlucky and got a mobo that's dead on arrival, but from Gigabyte that's unlikely.

Using a computer that works currently and testing your components one by one will determine which one is broken or faulty. :)

[Smashed]

Taken the graphics card to get tested by the local pc shop so will see what he says. If it's not the graphics card then I think the memory is possibly at fault as I did get blue screens once in a while for some kind of memory error.

Could I have possibly damaged the new board by using faulty memory?

[Razer]

Highly unlikely, I've never heard of it before but you never know. I'd just get the memory tested if the graphics card is not at fault and see what happens.

If you can get the RAM in another PC and boot it up, chances are it's not faulty. Run Memtest 86 to be sure though!