Need Help Troubleshooting

[Doom4life]

I'm trying to fix a family friend's computer that has the following issues:

• Computer turns on (incl. case fans), but does not POST (Doesn't beep at all)
• DVD drive doesn't open
• Monitor displays a no signal error

This computer is an Athlon X2 4800+, Asus mobo, 4GB Ram, and a BFG GeForce video card. The case sits on top of their computer table and their cat tried to jump on top of it from the floor, knocking it over and causing it to fall from the table onto the floor. The computer was off at the time, which I am hoping is a good thing.

I have tried a different PSU (from my own personal computer), reseating the video card and RAM with no luck. Another thing I tried, is I removed the IDE cable from the DVD drive and left it plugged into the PSU. It still doesn't open.

So what could this be? A bad mobo or CPU or could the drop have killed everything?

 

[obobski]

Things to check/try:

- is everything seated/mounted correctly
- is the motherboard shorted to the case
- can you test any of the components separately, in another system
- did anything rip/yank off (like heatsinks breaking processors)


if the DVD drive won't spin up/access when just connected to the PSU, thats a bad sign for the DVD drive, but a DVD drive is about $20, and isn't indicative of a total system failure, wouldn't worry too much beyond perhaps replacing that

the real issue is mechanical shock to the HD, and various components getting ripped/destroyed from their weight or the weight of their coolers shifting

there is a chance that yes, everything is destroyed, if the impact was hard enough (the only time I've actually ever seen this was an entire pallet (x.x) of OEM systems dropped about 2' down, and the machines on the bottom were flattened like soda cans), its more likely that some, but not all, of the components have been damaged

 

[engiNURD]

fat cat? lol.

start from scratch, pull everything out and do a barebones bench test outside of the case. If the core doesn't work, start troubleshooting outside of the case. More info in the troubleshooting sticky.