Help! Computer won't start

[emorphien]

This morning I went to log in to my computer and may have shocked the front USB port when hooking up a thumb drive. Now it won't start, no video, no bios beep, and my hard drive light just comes on solid. I'm not sure there's any connection between the two, but it's all I've got to go on for now.

Everything seems to spin up but I can't get anything to go. I'm planning to jump the BIOS when I get back home later today to see if that does anything. Otherwise, what are my chances of recovery from this or do you suggest any alternative routes to revive it.

 

[Jr. Woodchuck]

Pull the power plug from the power supply. Wait about 10 seconds and put it back in. There's been a # of times with my ATX computers where the powersupply for some reason is holding a charge that doesn't allow my computer to boot up. This fixes it.

Also if you still get a no post/no beep scenario, pull out all your expansion cards, including video if you have on board video, and boot up see if that gets you anywhere. While your pulling out the expansion cards double check your powercord connections inside the computer. Make sure the motherboard is getting power (you should see a green led lit if it is) and make sure you have solid connections with everything else.

If that doesn't work its time to start swapping parts in to rule out what has lost the ghost.

 

[emorphien]

The motherboard lights up fine, and prior to this little zap my finger gave the front USB ports everything was fine. My computer was locked but on overnight and i moved the mouse before I hooked up the USB drive (which was when I shocked it) so my monitors were displaying my login screen. Only that's all it would do. It didn't respond to anything.

I tried the trick of shutting off my power supply and waiting, but I think I'm going to try it again when I get home later and also switch the jumper on the BIOS to do a hard reset on it (or whatever the trendy word for that is).

I'm not a computer noob, so I'm more or less looking for brutal insight on where to look first. If all that doesn't work then I have to start playing musical parts which I'm not looking forward to.

 

[Jr. Woodchuck]

You keep on saying the word shock. Did you actually feel a shock or see an arc of some kind when you plugged in the USB? If so my money is on the motherboard being toast.

 

[emorphien]

You keep on saying the word shock. Did you actually feel a shock or see an arc of some kind when you plugged in the USB? If so my money is on the motherboard being toast.

Yes, I did indeed say shock more than once. And I was hoping maybe someone could say that it might have survived because I don't need this to break right now. I felt a shock when I touched the front USB port, the shock didn't come from the computer to the USB though, it came from me. Apparently I was statically charged .

Anyway, I've taken out all the cards, didn't help anything. I took out the RAM and got a long (6 sec) beep which means memory or video error or possiby still it could just be a problem with the mobo. I've tried several rearrangements with the RAM but nothings helped. Since nothing is coming up on the displays I'm going to have to test the video card out on a friends computer.