Solved BSOD / no POST or picture

[shadeyB]

good morning guys n gals
all advice greatly appreciated
last sunday my sons Acer towertop gave him the BSOD while in a game , he said it asked him to restart , but on restart theres was no picture ?

it wont POST or boot up , I opened it up and there is no visuall signs of anytihng wrong , not to dusty either LOL

i blew away whatever dust was there , it powers on / fans on power pack and CPU run , his monitor and cable works on other PC, i removed his Graphix card , removed his RAM and checked with other ones in both slots , reseated the CMOS battery , unplugged all periferals but still cant get it to POST and BOOT up , I am lost at what to do now other than checkin his HDD ( not sure how to ) or his CPU and mother board

and help much appreciated
thanks in advance Barry
i'm no GURU either :D

sorry for the lack of info of the actuall Stop Error he now knows next time to either write it down or take a picture

also i'm expecting delivery off USB to SATA/IDE adapter to check HDD ( i'm assuming i can just plug it into laptop as an exHDD and will show up in my computer if its not Bad) ?? and a POST tester Card ( again not sure how to use it ) and finally a PSU tester but i'm thinkin i can only test output in the ON position and not while the PSU is under load ??

 

[richc46]

Welcome
The first thing that we should do is back up his stuff. We can install and use Ubuntu for that.
If you cannot install Ubuntu, that means that you most likely have a hardware problem.
Therefore installing Ubuntu will help us in several ways.
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
If you cannot install, you can use your computers self diagnostics to help determine the hardware that causes the problem.

 

[shadeyB]

Thanks Richard

i have also try'd to get it to boot from origional Win7 Disc but nothing seems to happen as we cant or dont get any picture on his monitor when the system is powered up ??
the disc is in and we power up but nothing happens ? can hear initial spin or recognition that the disc is in but then nothing & we can get no further than that ?? so i cant get PC to self diagnose ??

thanks but am still stumped ?
have no picture or POST Beep's

 

[richc46]

Make sure the computer is set to boot from the CD and not the Operating System

 

[shadeyB]

thanks agsin Rich
it was set to boot from disc and i have tryed too also with origional disc but still no Boot
and as said before a just cant get it to POST, never mind actually gettin a picture from it ??

 

[townsbg]

No post and beep is a bad sign. Unfortunately it is probably hardware. Does it ever shut off or does it just there? I ask because my PSU has gone out on my desktop and sometimes when I try to start it all I get is a black screen before it shuts off. What happens when you disconnect everything but the power and graphics?

 

[shadeyB]

hi Townsbg
still nothing dude ? yeah am figuring its hardware :sa:
the monitor just goes to sleep as there is no signal from PC ?
i have a SATA cable and power cord / can i hook it up to my laptop via usb (pretend its an ExHDD) to see if my laptop recognises it ? then rule out faulty HDD ? if i can then it leaves me with faulty Motherboard or CPU ?
and yeah i suppose it still could be the PSU as i have no way of checking it while under load ?

i am sure it was set to load from CD 1st then HDD Rich
with re-seating the CMOS battery would that not ruturn Bios to default which is CD 1st ?

aaaargh technology

thanks
Barry

 

[shadeyB]

update
i have checked the HDD and it's ok / spins up and my laptop recognises it
receiced delivery of diagnostics card , although im not sure what all the codes mean
it has shown that the PSU is delivering what it should

checked; monitor/cables/RAM/HDD/graphix card/PSU/ re-seated cmos battery

the 4-digit PCI Debug card shows error --8F
pic & PDF manual attatched
error code shown on pg15 of manual
PC has an AMI Bios but manual doesnt show error --8F for AMI or am i just stupid ?
the 4 lights on left of card in pic shows +5V,+5V power,+3.3V,+3.3V power all supplied

still stumped

 

[townsbg]

I don't know anything about that card nor do I understand what that code means. Have you tried contacting that company?

As for connecting the drive to another computer that is a good thing to do to test the drive and backup data however that isn't a really good test of operating system stability since windows does not port from one system to another. However since the computer in question isn't even making it to the operating system then it doesn't really matter. Now you haven't completely answered my questions. If you let it does the system just sit there with the fans spinning or does it shut itself off? Have you tried removing the hard drives, cards, peripheral devices, and ram?

Best case scenario you have bad ram or a dying power supply. Worst case scenario the motherboard is dead. How old is this system? Is it still under warranty? If it is still is I would contact the manufacturer for parts replacement.

 

[shadeyB]

thanks
yeah dont know much about card either but thought it might help.
am sure ram is goo tested with old origional ones also and HDD is also fine

the system is 4years old pushing 5 yrs
it powers on , fans go , can hear HDD spinning up initially and just sits there alive but doing nothing ? untill i force shutdown with On button.
i figure its a BIOS problem as were not getting a POST from it ? system wont do anything till we get a POST ? no Beep's either and yes a speaker hooked up also ?
Rmoved all ram and expected it to do crazy with beep's but nothing ? is ther a certain sequence off checking to the POST ie.
1st CD
2nd Floppy
3rd HDD
4th RAM
etc,etc

is there a way of Flashing the BIOS ? even tho i cant do anything with the system ?? is so how do i ?

The system just sits there doing nothing, powered on and fans running ?

thanks

 

[shadeyB]

Update
after stripping it all back to bits n pc's
reaseated CPU, fan and cooling sink for GPU all with the aid of thermal compound asif it was new build
i have now managed to get a post beep from it ? stange one ? asPC has never been moved or anything to un-seat components ?
anyhow got the 2 beep from it which i believe is a hardware problem
of which i'm not sure what one has failed ?
while breadboarding or out the box build i feel i'v tested everything except the CPU or onboard GPU so im guessing its either ? as we only haVE one desktop i dont know how to ?

any suggestions guys n gals or am i defeated ?

thanks in advance
Barry

 

[richc46]

Your computer handbook or your computer mfg website will explain the meaning of the beeps.

 

[shadeyB]

sorry guys
i managed to get the beep while outa box re-build with everything except "monitor" hooked up as i had it stripped down in spare room
as i got it to post i though enough is enough for today and hooked it back up in ma boys room / hit the power button just to see if it would still POST .... yep it did .... 2 beeps again and well system booted up :D
initial msg about "CMOS bad" enter Set up or start up ,,, yeah i hit start up :D
got system up and running after startup repair .. RESULT .. !
BSOD recovery msg noted
system shut down again following updates as its bedtime for him now

CMOS bad ,is this msg because i reset the bios to default with jumpers while testing board ?
is so i take it i just amend it in the bios ? the date and time for sure but should i be looking at anything else ?
sholu i be looking for BIOS update from AMI ?

although i just stripped the whole thing down, tested and rebuilt the system i do thank you guys for your valuable input
so couple more post's here with the minidump files once i pull them out and ask for more advice
pretty soon it will be marked as resolved

thanks again
more to folllow