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Black Screen with no POST or Beep

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Siward

Siward

PCHF Member
Jan 30, 2021
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#1
I have an old desktop computer:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Processor (AM3 Socket)
BioStart TA870+ Motherboard
ATI 4850 Graphics Card
8mb of RAM

One day I shut it down from Windows. The next time I started it up, there was nothing on the monitor. No display and no beep. No POST. The desktop just turns on with the Power light. I see the CDROM light go on too, but nothing shows up on the monitor.

I started troubleshooting:
1) I checked for a loose monitor cable. In my case, it was a DVI cable. I made sure the monitor was ON and using the correct input.
2) I moved the desktop to my TV and plugged it in. Still no display.
3) I have another PC, so I opened it and swapped the graphics cards. The other PC still boots up and has a display, so it means the original video card wasn't the problem. The other PC also works with the TV.

Since I have another PC, I can continue to swap out components except for the CPU/Motherboard. What do you think is broken? How can it so coincidental for it break during a Windows shutdown. The only thing I can try swapping left is the power supply. The CMOS button battery on the motherboard is over 10 years old. Cold that be the culprit?

Any help from someone experienced would be appreciated.
 
#2
Siward said:
No display and no beep.
Click to expand...

The MB does not ship with a BIOS speaker fitted as standard so unless one has been retro fitted you will/would not get any error beeps.

What is the brand and model name or number of the PSU.

Does the CPU fan spin up when you press the power on button.

Siward said:
The only thing I can try swapping left is the power supply
Click to expand...

Try that.

Siward said:
The CMOS button battery on the motherboard is over 10 years old. Cold that be the culprit?
Click to expand...

Never say never but if it were a bad CMOS battery you would normally just get an onscreen CMOS error and the time and date would be wrong.

If the PSU is also ten years old that is the most likely cause but you should also try reseating the RAM and be sure to have a keyboard attached while you are troubleshooting, preferably a wired PS/2 type in case the USB ports are not working.
 
#4
I tried looking at the motherboard manual. On page 20 there is debug LED lights LED_D1 and LED_D2. Both lights are off.

All power LED lights LED_PH1 to LED_PH4 turn on.
 
#5
I have turned on the PC without a keyboard before. I at least get a BIOS splash screen with a no keyboard error. I don't get the completely black screen I get now.

Anyways. I plugged in my old PS/2 keyboard. The keyboard does not light up.
 
#6
phillpower2 said:
The MB does not ship with a BIOS speaker fitted as standard so unless one has been retro fitted you will/would not get any error beeps.
Click to expand...

Have you ever fitted such a speaker, this is important as the black screen and CPU fan behaviour are typical behaviour of a computer that is being shut down to prevent the CPU from getting fried, when this happens you normally hear a siren like noise to warn you, no speaker = no warning which = a fried CPU if not careful :(

phillpower2 said:
you should also try reseating the RAM
Click to expand...

Did you try this.

Siward said:
The CPU fan spins for less than one second as soon as the PC is turned ON.
Click to expand...

That could be a PSU issue but it could also be a bad CPU cooling fan or a faulty fan header on the MB, to check if it is the fan header you can temporarily connect the CPU cooling fan to one of the chassis fan headers on the MB to see if it keeps spinning, see the below from the user manual to help with dong this correctly;

Note:
CPU_FAN1, SYS_FAN1/2 support 4-pin and 3-pin head connectors. When connecting
with wires onto connectors, please note that the red wire is the positive and should be
connected to pin#2, and the black wire is Ground and should be connected to GND.

Siward said:
The brand of the PSU is OCZ Stealth Stream 2 500W.
Click to expand...

A ten year old PSU from a less than top brand that only had a three year warranty just may be the cause, see explanation below;

As a PSU puts out various voltages +3.3V, +5V and +12V it may appear that the PSU is working correctly but it is not, any significant drop of any output can prevent the system from booting up, the other scenario is a significant increase in the output which can be worse as it can fry one or more major components such as the MB, CPU, RAM, add on video card etc.

Unless urgent;
If using a computer and not a mobile phone, please avoid adding multiple posts while waiting for us to reply to your last,

I can have upwards of 100+ notifications per day from people that I am helping so can do without spam like responses adding to list.
 
#7
Reseated two 4gb XMS3 Corsair RAM chips. Yes. It was dusty. No changes.

Changed out CR2032 CMOS button battery. No difference.

I just swapped out the OCZ 500W PSU with a Thermaltake Smart White 500W PSU from a working desktop. The Thermaltake PSU is just a little over a year old and is still under warranty. Still the same symptoms.

No Bios splash screen, just a black screen. CPU fan spins around one or two revolutions and then stops when exactly when desktop is turned on.
 
#9
Sorry but for us to best be able to help you with this you need to help us by answering every question as best you can;

phillpower2 said:
Have you ever fitted such a speaker, this is important as the black screen and CPU fan behaviour are typical behaviour of a computer that is being shut down to prevent the CPU from getting fried, when this happens you normally hear a siren like noise to warn you, no speaker = no warning which = a fried CPU if not careful :(
Click to expand...
phillpower2 said:
That could be a PSU issue but it could also be a bad CPU cooling fan or a faulty fan header on the MB, to check if it is the fan header you can temporarily connect the CPU cooling fan to one of the chassis fan headers on the MB to see if it keeps spinning, see the below from the user manual to help with dong this correctly;

Note:
CPU_FAN1, SYS_FAN1/2 support 4-pin and 3-pin head connectors. When connecting
with wires onto connectors, please note that the red wire is the positive and should be
connected to pin#2, and the black wire is Ground and should be connected to GND.
Click to expand...
 
#10
Thank you for the help thus far.

I bought a used Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 (rev. 1.x) and swapped out my biostar motherboard. It was a gamble. Unfortunately, it didn't boot. I had some spare cooler master thermal paste to reinstall the CPU.

The Gigabyte motherboard came with a beep speaker. Upon power on, it seems to beep two long beeps with a pause in between. Unlike the biostar motherboard, the CPU fan spins then stops, then spins again. It looks like it can't get past something. No bios or POST. Just a black screen.
 
#11
SOLVED. I guessed the Gigabyte two long beeps were short ones. I followed the beep code to clear the CMOS. System booted up after resetting BIOS to defaults. It was probably caused by the motherboard previous owner overclock settings.

Thank you for help. No reply needed.
 
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