Troubleshooting my Desktop

[Phobos]

I'm not sure if there are any tech gurus here who know how to test for hardware failure, but my PC has been down for 3 weeks now and I can't get it to boot. I know that my HD is fine though since I was able to connect it to my laptop using an enclosure to retrieve data.

The power supply I was using was confirmed to have burned out so I replaced it with another corsair black, this time 750W. So I know this isn't the issue. I suspect either the motherboard, CPU, or both need to be replaced now. I've ordered a replacement motherboard which will be here next week since I am leaning more towards the possibility of that being at fault now rather than the CPU.

This is what I have observed so far, if anyone has more testing suggestions please let me know.

- When the ATX12V1 cable is connected to Mobo, it will not power on at all. When I press the power button, the fans just barely move, but stop right away, and no further power is transmitted. I have to unplug and replug it to achieve the same effect.
- The new PSU will only power on the computer when the ATX12V1 cable (6 pin CPU power) is disconnected from the motherboard. This is supposed to be plugged in at all times. When not plugged in, the PC powers up.
- When the cable is disconnected and its powered on, there are no lights on the keyboard, nothing shows on the monitor, and the power button does NOT turn the PC back off even when holding it down for a long time. The fans spin but there is no response and it must be manually shut off from the PSU power switch or unplugged.
- Disconnecting the GPU, RAM, and HD have no effect, and there is no beeping noise from the motherboard
- The CMOS button lights up red on the motherboard, but the internal temperature number panel does not. Also, resetting the CMOS/BIOS has no effect. I don't think the GPU is bad and the RAM is easily replaceable if needed.

So any help, advice, or tips would be appreciated. I can't afford to take it to another repair shop right now, the one I just took it to failed to fix anything and I'm better off just swapping out potentially damaged parts for new ones until its working again.

[Led]

Sounds like the motherboard to me.

[Dark_Phantom]

I agree with Led here.  Best chance is to replace the Motherboard, and if that doesn't work, we've narrowed it to the CPU.  In which case you will have some extra parts to play around with.
My bet is when the PSU fried, it messed with the MoBo.

[aeria.]

Motherboard

[Phobos]

The new motherboard works and seems to have fixed the powerup issue.

However now I can't boot to windows, it says Windows Boot Error, crashes on a BSOD when the windows logo spins. I've tried using startup repair but it couldn't fix the issue. Do I have to reformat my HD and reinstall Windows?

[Led]

Ouch.

I would grab another hard drive and try installing windows on it before re-formatting my current HD.

[aeria.]

If you were running an OEM copy of Windows then you'd need to do a re-install anyhow.

If the Windows repair function in the installation DVD is not working, bad news.

[Phobos]

If you were running an OEM copy of Windows then you'd need to do a re-install anyhow.

If the Windows repair function in the installation DVD is not working, bad news.

My PC is custom built using parts from newegg.

Shortly after windows loads, it crashes on BSOD
Stop Error:
0x0000007B 0xFFFFF880009A9928 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034 0x0000000000000000
0x0000000000000000

I tried everything I could find online for connecting windows 7 HD to new motherboard, nothing works. All other methods that don't involve a clean OS reinstall have failed. I spent almost 10 hours yesterday testing every method I could find online.

- Startup repair fails, indicates AutoFailOver from BadDriver.
- Tried running bootrec /fixboot and /fixmbr, these did nothing.
- Exported my BCD backup and ran bootrec /rebuildBCD. This caused a bug where my startup options from pressing F8 were ignored, and the PC always forced a boot into startup repair. I had to hook up the HD to my enclosure, and replace the new BCD with my backup to fix this loop bug.
- I tried running DISM to copy drivers from the motherboard disc over during startup repair.
- Tried switching between every SATA Controller Mode in the BIOS: IDE, AHCI, RAID
- I tried using Hiren's USB Boot Disc and Mini XP to fix the registry HDC
- I tried using regedit from startup repair to modify SCSI miniport start values
- After all these modifications, the only difference now is that it always hangs on BSOD during normal startup, before it would flash it for a splitsecond and then automatically restart. The autorestart seems to be disabled but it still won't boot.

It was able to boot normally once where I installed the motherboard drivers from the CD it said to restart, then BSOD came back again. There were 2 other popups, one saying I needed to reinstall ATI Drivers since my resolution was super low, and the other saying I needed to re-activate Windows, but my ethernet driver wasn't installed so I couldn't.

It appears the new drivers probably installed, but the old ones won't remove from the system, causing a conflict. Since I've tried every tutorial I could find online, it seems the only surefire way would have been to magically know in advance that my motherboard was about to fail, and run SysPrep to disable all the current drivers.

Since this is impossible now, and I'm not gonna pay to buy another ASRock mobo with the same chipsets, the only option I can see now is formatting a secondary HD with a clean install of windows 7. Then I will have to reinstall all the drivers, and programs from before. And then copy over my data from the main harddrive which will take a while since its 1TB.

I'll update this thread once I have the new OS loaded on the other HD.

[Phobos]

Everything is working again finally! 

The fresh windows 7 install fixed BSOD error. Now I have to completely reinstall all the drivers and programs which will take a while but its's good to know all the problems are finally fixed. Consider this thread solved now.

[spoiler]http://i.imgur.com/tVXhFeM.jpg[/spoiler]

[Dark_Phantom]

Great to see that!  It's always a good feeling after the curses of Windows go away.  Hope to see you ingame very soon!

[aeria.]

That's a recent motherboard model you bought. Check if it's still under warranty.