Troubling Troubleshooting: Black screen on boot up -- No BIOS, No Nothing

[CharDar]

Hardware of note:

• MSI Z77A-G45 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 (4 years old, along with the CPU, RAM)

Here's the scoop: Bought a new hard drive for my rig, upgraded to Windows 7 on that HDD, started installing updates for my motherboard and my computer gave up. Now, when I turn on the power to the PC, everything sounds like it's starting up, but I just get a blank screen on the monitor--no BIOS, no nothing. One thing I did notice is that it seems like the computer is restarting itself in a loop. The reason I say that is because when I do start it up, I can hear one hardware component (which I think is my Video Card) power up and then back down, over and over again. Also, the lights on my keyboard turn on and off in conjunction to this noise from the computer. Another thing I noticed was that I have LED lights on the motherboard that blink in conjunction to CPU activity--now those lights are lit up and solid--no blinking at all.

I've tried a couple things so far:

• Resetting the BIOS using both the on-board reset feature and a hard reset by removing the battery.
• Removing nearly every component I can one at a time and booting (I've removed video card, both hard drives--one at a time--which have OS on them)

I'm not sure what else I can do to diagnose the problem. However, it seems to be hardware related. My best guess is that it may be motherboard related because the computer froze and my headphone audio went crazy during the motherboard software upgrade service from MSI. I wasn't doing anything else out of the ordinary.

If you need anymore information, just ask. Thanks a lot.


Update #1: I tried taking out the 4 RAM sticks and trying them 1 at a time to see if anything happened. Interesting thing is, if all 4 sticks are not in the motherboard, the computer constantly reboots itself by shutting down completely and then turning itself back on. However, when the 4 sticks are in place, it will run continuously.

Update #2: I unplugged everything from the computer except the CPU and the HSF. I got three long beeps. I added one stick of RAM and then I got silence. According to a guide on tom's hardware, this means that the PSU is shot. What do you guys think?

 

[MrTroy03]

Could be the PSU certainly. When you say "updating the motherbard" do you mean flashing the BIOS or just upgrading the Windows chipset drivers for the mobo? If you were flashing the BIOS and the PC powered off, you may be hosed. If you were just upgrading the drivers and not flashing the BIOS, it is probably a hardware issue.

Use the onboard video, and unplug your video card (you probably did that already). You have to have at least one stick of memory in or the thing won't POST at all. Make sure you try with external devices disconnected as well, including the keyboard and mouse. So try only the CPU, CPU fan, and onboard video with one stick of RAM and see what happens.

I would try another PSU if you have one laying around.

 

[CharDar]

Could be the PSU certainly. When you say "updating the motherbard" do you mean flashing the BIOS or just upgrading the Windows chipset drivers for the mobo? If you were flashing the BIOS and the PC powered off, you may be hosed. If you were just upgrading the drivers and not flashing the BIOS, it is probably a hardware issue.

Use the onboard video, and unplug your video card (you probably did that already). You have to have at least one stick of memory in or the thing won't POST at all. Make sure you try with external devices disconnected as well, including the keyboard and mouse. So try only the CPU, CPU fan, and onboard video with one stick of RAM and see what happens.

I would try another PSU if you have one laying around.

Thanks for the reply!

I don't remember exactly what I was doing, honestly. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't updating the BIOS. After lots of breadbording and so forth I took an educated guess and decided it might be either my CPU or Motherboard (after I bought a new PSU, which I needed anyways because mine was nearly 10 years old), so I bought both of those. Breadborded the new components, and now everything is working like a charm.