So I’m decent with a screwdriver, but I have a door stop problem.
It’s an HP Pavillion p6520f running Windows 10, it has a new H-RS880-uATX (Aloe) motherboard, a new Western Digital 7200 RPM Red Label 1TB hard drive, 14GB RAM and a new 450 PSU watts. The processor is an AMD Athlon II 630 series (delivered with the motherboard used). I also have an Athlon II 635 CPU from the stock motherboard and an AMD Phenom II X4 965 which I was going to install to run the setup at relative maximum speed. The new hard drive was cloned from a WD caviar green ?3600 RPM which was analyzed and repaired by a friend who works in IT as a daily job
The story begins with our return home to a black screen at the end of January. Would not restart any video stream. Tried restarting several times to no avail.
I left with the power still on. A few days later, my wife asks how I fixed it, I said I didn’t fix it.
Since we had put in a Seagate 4TB backup a year ago, I asked the backup to do a full backup while it was still running and hoping HP didn’t stop in the middle of backup.
So we come back after a day and there is no video stream, it won’t boot up and won’t even show the BIOS screen
Examination of the backup drive showed that many important files were on the backup and could be accessed through File Explorer when the drive was connected via USB to another computer.
I assumed a hard drive crash while talking with my friend the IT pro, he says he has software that will work with a crashed drive to fix the errors. I went ahead and bought a new WD disk drive and asked them to clone the drive once the old drive issues were resolved.
So I put the cloned drive in the machine and turn it on, nothing happens, not even a BIOS screen. So I put the old repaired disk back and I get the same results.
I noticed that the motherboard still had its little bright green LED in one corner. But nothing was happening.
So I take it to the franchise chain electronics repair store and have them check it out. They come back a day later and couldn’t find a problem. They suggested it was either the motherboard or the power supply, since the hard drive is spinning at full speed and sounds like it’s trying to do I/O.
So how difficult is it to replace a motherboard and power supply? so i ordered a used motherboard which was the exact same model as the original board with the same part number sticker on the board.
Along with the part number was the word Infineon above the part number on the sticker. It came with AMD Athlon II 630 processor and it had the same chipset as the old motherboard.
The power supply was a 450 watt replacement to replace the original 250 watt power supply. The wiring harness matched the old one exactly as advertised.
I removed the RAM chips and set them aside in anti-static packaging. I labeled all the different plugs with their different positions on the motherboard. I removed the CPU cooler and the CPU from the motherboard and took the same precautions with the CPU as with the RAM.
I then removed the power supply and subsequently the original motherboard.
I installed the new motherboard and power supply (for me), then reconnected all the power connections and various USB connections fans etc. cleaned the old thermal compound from the CPU and heatsink and put a new compound in its place. Reseat the CPU cooler fan, then reseat the RAM chips. Insert the new WD hard drive
Everything matched the pictures I took before taking it apart.
I plugged in a monitor, keyboard and mouse. . and turned it on. Expect to at least access the bios screen
And no, nothing black screen again. The green video input light never showed.
Tried turning it on with a stick of RAM. I tried to access the BIOS screen by disconnecting the hard drive. Nothing works. All the fans are spinning and the motherboard has its little green LED on.
So I guess it’s not a hardware issue anymore.
Annnndd that’s why I’m here now.
Originally I was thinking hardware, but now I was thinking drivers or a cluster of BIOSf__k.
But couldn’t find a reason for the problem given the original black screen and inability to restart
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Let the hive mind pick up where I left off. Thank you in advance!
