This month I decided to build me a new PC
By theonerm5
@theonerm5 (365)
United States
November 21, 2008 12:31pm CST
So yeah I decided to build a PC this month but I ran into a problem. I'll tell you everything I did. I went on ebay and bought an Athlon64 X2 4400+ CPU and motherboard combo for $88.99. Then I bought me a cheap case that came with a 450 watt power supply for only $21.99. I was able to find some cheap RAM so I got 2GB for only $8.79 and it was low density RAM and it was guaranteed to work with any motherboard. Next I found me a 250GB SATA II hard drive for only $25 but it was used so I was only hoping it would be in good working condition. Next I realized I still needed a video card so I looked and found a Radeon 2600 XT with 512MB of GDDR3 vRAM for only $60 and I thought wow! Everywhere else I've saw that card it was $119.99 so I thought it was a good deal. I didn't buy an optical drive though because I had an unused DVD+-RW drive laying around already and I thought I'd just use that. So after I bought everything I waited for it all to come in! First came the CPU and motherboard combo. I opened it and inspected it for any physical damage then I repackaged it in wait for the other parts. The next day the video card came and I inspected it as well. The day after that the RAM came and I looked at it to make sure it wasn't broken. I was starting to worry at this point why the hard drive and case hadn't came yet so I asked the sellers for the tracking numbers. First I tracked the hard drive on the UPS website and they said it would be coming tomorrow. Sure enough the hard drive came the next day. I partitioned and formatted the hard drive in my current PC to test it and it seemed to be in perfect condition. I was very happy about this and I knew I got lucky with it. Then I tracked my case on the fedex website and they said my package would arrive on monday. And then monday came and went without me ever seeing my package. So then I went online and tracked it and they said my package would be here on tuesday. Just like monday tuesday came and went without that package at my door. So I called fedex and asked why my package isn't here yet. They said they had to change terminals and it should be here tomorrow. So then I watched all day for the fedex truck to come. Finally the fedex truck was up there in the road! I ran up to the fedex truck and got my package finally! FINALLY! I finally was able to build my PC! I built my PC and installed windows! Everything was working perfectly and my new PC was so fast! I was very very happy! Then I turned my PC off and then turned it back on. The power light came on, the HDD light came on, I heard the fans spinning, but I couldn't get any display. I checked all the connections then tried again but only to get the same result. I then opened my PC, took the bios battery out for 30 seconds, then put it back in, and tried it. Still the PC did exactly the same thing after I tried it. I opened the PC again and reseated everything and replugged everything in. The PC still didn't display anything! I thought maybe it was the video card so I tried a different video card. Still no display! So then I took the motherboard out of the case and layed it on some cardboard, tried it, and it worked! But not for long!! It did the same thing it did the time before! I powered it down but it never powered back up showing a display. I eventually determined that something was wrong with either the CPU or the motherboard and sent it back for replacement. My replacement was shipped yesterday so I should be getting it on Monday. Wish me luck!
And has anyone else encountered this type of problem? What could have been wrong? When I sent my board back for replacement they tested it and said it worked just fine. They said they think that it was my motherboard grounding to the case but it couldn't have been grounding to the case because it did the same thing when I tested it on the cardboard. I just don't know what I'll do if I encounter this same problem on the replacement board!
1 response
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
22 Nov 08
Sounds to me like there was a short in the motherboard. It may appear fine during testing, but the problem creeps up during extended use. Whenever I've seen problems like you described it turned out to be a bad motherboard. Hopefully the problem will be gone when you receive your replacement.


