Dead PC - help, please

[Jeremiah58]

Hi guys,

This is about the home PC which is described in my PC specifications. It is 2 years old.
Last night i turned my PC off normally.
I powered it up today, all lights are on, all fans are spining, no strange sounds or beeps, but there is nothing on the screen, no mesages, nothing.
What bothers me is that when I leave it to do a boot time and then I press the sturt button (Windows icon) on my keyboard, I don't see normal red light blinking activity.

Please help me with advices what could be a possible cause for this, probably hardware failure.

Thank you in advance.

[ROF]

Are you hearing the normal whirring and clicking noises associated with your computers bootup sequence? Most people can hear their hard drives spring to life or other noises.

[Jeremiah58]

I'm not sure about that.
I have 2 hard drives and it seems that they are spinning.
I don't hear unusual noises.
Thanks

[Jeremiah58]

I've cheked again and I hear normal whirring and clicking noises associated with computers bootup sequence, but I also hear one short beep sound.

[ROF]

The Asus P4S line will beep if you have either a dead video card or none installed. I have seen a P4S that failed to boot up and did not report(beep) any errors because of a bad piece of RAM. You may want to try those first. Pull all RAM pieces and insert one at a time to see if you have a bad one.

It goes without saying that when working inside your PC make sure the power is off and the main power cord is unplugged. Lean on your case with bare arms to ground any static your body may have before touching the components.

[ROF]

Another issue may be a dying BIOS battery that has caused issues in your BIOS. To correct this hold down the insert key while booting. If your boot sequence appears hit the delete key to enter the BIOS and select the option to "Load Optimized". Save this BIOS setting and reboot. BIOS batteries are cheap BTW and what to look for is a american quarter(money) size battery on the motherboard. ON the P4S boards it's located near the southbridge or just in front of the floppy port.

[Jeremiah58]

Thanks ROF.
I have a spare video card. I use ATI cards. The spare one is 9250. So I can replace the video card.
I'll check what you've suggested and come back.
Thanks

[Jeremiah58]

Dear ROF,

Exactly what you said:
One beep indicates dead video card.
I replaced the video card and computer works now.
I've got some messages before boot up, unseen before, but I managed to Windows.

Thank you very much ROF - you saved me time and $$$ for service repair.

[ROF]

Thank you very much ROF - you saved me time and $$$ for service repair.

You will be getting my bill.

Glad to help.

[Jeremiah58]

Just one more help, please.
Now the "Found new hardware wizzard" asks me about the driver for the RAID controller.
When I click "Install" it asks me to find it on the Internet.
When I checked in the Device Menager, it says that the RAID controller is not configured properly
Should I put the Asus motherboard CD in to reinstall this driver?
Is this driver on that CD?
Thanks

[ROF]

It might be on the CD, but I'll bet the Asus website has an updated driver available for download. http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

[Jeremiah58]

Thank you, ROF.

[ROF]

No problem. I always recommend that if a driver is needed you first check the manufacturers website. When I build PCs I never even open the sleeves those discs come in. I just give them to the customer. The websites always have the latest drivers available.

[Treebeard]

No problem. I always recommend that if a driver is needed you first check the manufacturers website. When I build PCs I never even open the sleeves those discs come in. I just give them to the customer. The websites always have the latest drivers available.

Very good advice. I actually like to download the latest drivers for all hardware for that machine build and put them all on 1 CD-R. give that to customer as well.