Coming to you live from another computer!...

...because mine has gone to shit.

I bought my coworker's new and unopened P4w/HT processor and motherboard sometime last year (maybe around exactly one year ago) and it went to crap in the span of 24 hours last night. Two nights ago, I came home from hanging out with my friend, his g/f and her cousin and it worked fine; last night I came home from work and it lasted in Windows for maybe 20 minutes. Then 10 after a reboot. Then 1. Then it barely got to the BIOS. Then the hard drive wouldn't spin up. Now it takes two power-button presses to get it going (kind of like how Daniel and his mother had to push their car to get it going in The Karate Kid), and all it does is idle, pre-BIOS. My father and I systematically yanked everything except the essentials (even the video card) and nothing would happen. Note: the POST-speaker, which I know was working as recently as a week ago when I formatted, no longer beeped and hasn't beeped in days. I'd say it hasn't been disconnected but I don't know either way because the motherboard doesn't have a visible jack for it and the diagram for the motherboard doesn't speak of anything either.

My most recent upgrade was changing out my CD burner for a new one. That thing acted sort of goofy (losing power then powering back up), but my guess is that the power supply still works (the CPU and case fans still work). Ultimately the conclusion is my processor and/or my motherboard are fucked. I'm disappointed. I don't want to spend the money to replace both (and I'll be going to Intel to see if I can get an RMA on at least the processor), but having a computer of my own has been nice and I'd like to continue that. Everything about the computer is fine, except I've never been content with the ventilation with this case...and it's loud enough as it is. I like my father's nice silent Dell (the one I'm using now)...actually, any retail computer is about as quiet as my computer is now...and it's off. But I don't need to replace the video card, or hard drives, or optical drive(s).

Guidance would be nice.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm not completely sure, but you may need a stronger power supply if you are about to install new drives and such.
They are reasonably priced - $50-100 CDN, so I would give that a shot before replacing your motherboard/CPU.

Have you an old working computer on which you could test your hardware to see which part exactly is causing the trouble?
Have you tried vacuming it out if it is really dusty?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

i would try a new power supply first. i don't know what kind you have, but if it's a generic crappy one, you'll want a better one anyway. maybe test with a different power supply that you know works. on this note, you can try unhooking the power from all the drives and just have power go to the motherboard.

if the psu isn't dead, this could either be the cpu OR the motherboard. the easiest test would be to replace the cpu with another of the same socket type. maybe your dad's dell will work (this is getting into risky territory, though, as you may void whatever warranty he might have).

if the cpu replacement doesn't work, then it's the motherboard... if you replace both, you can then find out which one really was the culprit and sell the other working part.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The PSU seems the most likely. I've had the case for years now (Antec; power supply = 350W) so if those things can burn out I'd be quicker to replace that than to replace the proc and/or mobo. It just seems weird to me that with everything unhooked and just the motherboard drawing power that, at the very least, I wouldn't get any beeps out of it.

Unfortunately, he apparently doesn't have any spare PSUs lying around. I'm sure we'll think of something.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

your dad has a dell, right? you could try using the dell one, and JUST connecting it to your motherboard to see if it will post.

if it will, it's the psu, etc.... you already know that.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Dells use proprietary connectors for their power supplies, IIRC.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Flash your bios first, see if it makes a difference, (Doubt it, but worth a go).

It seems like something has let go, if you can get other parts to swap in and pin point which component has borked, do so.

Seems like a RAM problem or a cooked CPU maybe, which could have damaged the motherboard.

Most amazing jew boots

I had a similar problem recently. It turned out that one of the memory modules had gone bad. Once I took it out, however, the computer worked fine. If that's not it, then the PSU does seem like it would be a likely problem.

If neither of those are causing the problem, then try looking at the capacitors on your motherboard, maybe they've gone expanded and "bubbled over." Hopefully that's not the problem, because if it is, then you'll need to get a new motherboard.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?