Computer will not boot.

[RealityFusion]

Windows XP Professional
AMD 3200+ Barton Core
1 GB DDR PC3200 Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Motherboard
Sound Blaster Pro SoundCard
Antec Power Supply (430 watts)

Built the computer myself.

I moved to another state and the computer was in the trunk of my car for 7 days and over 1,.600 miles. The computer worked fine before I moved it. When I got back and unloaded the computer I added RAM, 2x 512 Crucial. Hooked it back up and the computer will not boot. I get no bios beeps, the power supply starts up and turn all the fans on and I can hear my HDD making noise for a few seconds. My monitor LED light turns green for a few seconds then it turns orange.
I have manuals for every part of my computer, even the RAM. I read the manual on my monitor and it says, that if the computer is on and the LED is orange, it is not establishing a connection with my vidoe input.
With the computer being in the trunk of my car for that long, has the heat screwed up my graphics card or my motherboard? I have tried changing out the RAM to what I was before I got the extra gig and it doesn't help. I have a few more computer, should I try to exchange the video cards out to try to see if it is my graphics card?
I don't know how fragile graphics cards are when it comes to heat. I was actually getting worried about the computer getting to hot and sweating, if it can do that. The computer and the monitor were both covered up with a blanket as well. I went though some of the hottest parts of the U.S. Texas, New Mexico and Arizona......Was it the heat? Do I need to replace my graphics card? How should I trouble shoot?

Thanks in advance.

[EvBladeRunnervE]

Unless you were traveling on the sun(ok,slight exageration ), heat would not be a problem. Are you hearing any beeps at all? because most motherboards I know beep when they initiate their POST.

[RealityFusion]

No beeps at all. The LED light on my motherboard is green though.


EDIT: I just double checked it. There is a faint beep and then a sort of scratching sound.

[EvBladeRunnervE]

where is the scratching sound? Someone who has knowledge of AMDs should correct me, but does the Barton still have the problem of going up in flames without a HSF properly working?

[Waldo2k2]

Well, the easiest thing to do when trouble shooting is to unplug all the drives and see if it will fire up, if it does, plug them back in one by one till it doesn't work anymore, then obviously the one you just plugged in no longer works (chances are it's the hard drive, they tend to short out which would drag the whole system down). If that doesn't work, and your mobo has onboard video, unplug your radeon and use the onboard and see if it posts. If that doesn't work, unplug everything, all drives, all pci/agp/etc cards, and the memory. See if it POSTs then (it will error out yes but at least you'll know the processor is still good). If that doesn't work, then set the bios/cmos jumpers to reset and try booting with everything taken out still. If that doesn't work, then you have a bad processor. It's not the motherboard because that green light says 2 things, that the ram is good, and that the board has a complete circuit. Good luck.

[RealityFusion]

I unplugged both of my HDD, floppy and my cd-rom. I cannot disconnect my graphics card. If I do I will not have a place to plug my monitor in. I also took out all of my ram and my soundcards and pci cards and I don't even get an error message......So are you saying that I need a new processor?


EDIT: When I built the computer my budget ran out after the processor so I had to skim and get a crappy heatsink and fans. The computer ran fine but the temperature was a bit high.....61 degrees fareheit I think

[RealityFusion]

where is the scratching sound? Someone who has knowledge of AMDs should correct me, but does the Barton still have the problem of going up in flames without a HSF properly working?

If by HSF you mean Heatsink Fan then thats was not the problem. I have no burn marks at or around my heatsinkfan or my processor...that I can see. And the fan was already at max speed.

If it is the processor, what other AMD high end processor do you suggest I get that will work with my motherboard? I know some one will say the AMD 64. I don't really see the point in getting that right now. But then again I don't know how close the 64 'era' is.

[RealityFusion]

I removed my heatsink fan and reseated my processor. The processor looked exactly like it did when I bought it. Could it be my power supply. Would I have to remove my power supply to check if it is burned out?

EDIT: Another funny thing is that once the computer is on, I can't turn it off with the power button on the front. I have to use the power switch on the back to turn it off.

[Draco]

That sounds like it could be a power supply problem to me. Also it could be a tweak in the motherboard's connection to the power button. I'm not sure how you'd exactly check the power supply, you may have take the computer in to get all the parts checked if you can't see anything like burn marks. My AMD Athlon often goes higher than 61 degrees especially when playing games and it's never hurt anything.

[Waldo2k2]

It's not the power supply, if it was he wouldn't get anything, something is shorted out. Just remove your video card anyway and see if the thing will even beep at you, if it does, then that means your card is fried and everything else is fine. Try that before running out and buying a new processor (amd 64 won't work with that board anyway, 64 bit chips are 754 and 9xx pins, 32 bit chips are 452 pin, slight incompatibility). And since you mention that the soft off power doesn't work, that leads me to believe that the board isn't getting enough juice because something is dragging it down (prob. the graphics card). So just remove that and see what happens, don't worry about the monitor.

[major_small]

waldo could have your answer with the underpowered mobo... that happened to me, but then again taking some drives out should fix the problem... especially since all you added was memory...

another indicator is that it sounds like it's starting up normally, but then just kinda stops and the mobo light stays on...

-- Testing your power supply --

what you could do for that is test the power output with everything connected... on one of the regular-size connectors (four female slots), put the black lead of a voltimeter into one of the middle, and the other in one on the outside. MAKE SURE NOT TO LET THEM TOUCH EACHOTHER!!! it should read within 20% (?) of either 12 or 5. then try it on the other side and it should be either 12 or 5 again.

[RealityFusion]

Just took the video card out and I still didn't get a beep. Are you saying that it is the processor then?

[major_small]

so right now there's nothing connected, except for the power supply/motherboard/processor/psu?

[Waldo2k2]

Well, sounds like it's coming down to the processor or motherboard...though most motherboards give some kind of warning when the processor is bad (I had a soyo board that had a female voice saying that the processor was damaged ) and since you have a decent board you'd figure that would happen....so, you can try a different psu if you have one laying around, but I doubt that's the problem. You can try a different processor if you have any 462 pin proc's laying around (or know a friend who does). And if neither of those 2 fix it you probably have a damaged motherboard (did you happen to noticed any blown capacitors? because usually if one of those blow, the board will still function intermittently). And while you're at it since you did drive a long way maybe you should check if the motherboard power connectors are properly inserted, they may have rattled loose.

[Shadow]

To slip it in quick. Realize that you can have one power rail go bad on a PSU. When you have a bad PSU, it doesn't just have to completely toast itself. I tossed one hard drive(13gb luckily it wasn't huge) because of a bad power rail.

Unplugged my computer from the waill and unplugged the power supply from the case and spliced the dead plugs onto the live wires and now I have all 4 of my plugs again(all comes off the same transistors inside anyways).

Tech TV had an interesting segment on the screensavers for moddin' PSUs.

This, of course after a quick glance, is far from the OPs problem..but interesting info to keep in mind when diagnossing a PC problem