My SuSE 10.0 computer was running nicely for a year. Then on Sunday (3/4/07) I went to turn on the computer as usual but there were no sounds, no whirring of the harddrive starting up, no display on the screen -- absolutely nothing. It was as if it was unplugged. I checked all plugs and cables (they were fine). So I thought it might be the power supply. My husband got a new case with new power supply and after transfering everything exactly the way it had been, he tried to start it up. The lights flickered a little bit then went out then nothing. The computer does not even boot up, no display on the screen. It is completely dead. We can't even boot into the bios.

What would make a computer do this? Could it be the motherboard, the cpu?

Motherboard:
Intel D865PERL
Kernel:
2.6.13-15.13 smp

It really could be a number of things-I am having a similar problem with my parent's computer. This does not mean, however that you lost all info on your computer. Do you have another computer? And one with a CD or DVD writer? If so, try this. (If you don't have the Knoppix LiveCD, download and burn it.) Hook two drives up to one computer (the one that works)and hook up your HDD to it as well. (you may have to alter the settings on the clips at the back of the drives. Preferably, set (assuming one drive is a writer(A) and the other(B) is not) B as master on the primary IDE, and A to slave on the same IDE. Then, set the HDD to master on the second IDE. Put your Knoppix CD in 'B' drive. Then boot the computer. The Knoppix CD will boot and just follow the instructions on the screen to boot the actual desktop. Knoppix will read you HDD and CD drives. Start burning all the files from your hard drive to a discs in 'A' drive. (You could use a external hard drive or usb instead of the writer drive-but I assume you used a lot of space.) Then reinstall whatever operating system you want on the drive (assuming when it is hooked up to another computer in the first place, it doesn't boot). Then get a processor-investigate the exact specifications you need, i.e. type of processor, make and socket type. Try that, if that doesn't work, get a new motherboard.

Hope that helps! :-)

Thanks for the reply. I am working from my Windows XP computer at the moment. I really miss my Linux computer.
Anyway, I'm not that concerned with the files because I have been sending copies to the Windows computer via Samba all along. I also had made a backup of some apps on the Linux computer a while ago.

So, if I understand you right, I should take out the processor in the non-working computer and try a new one and if that does not work, then the problem could be the motherboard?

Some computers have an on/off switch (on the back of the tower) in addition to power button (on the front), and if there's some kind of power interruption you may need to first toggle the back switch, then press the front power button. This is actually a useful safety feature, because if the electricity is unstable (such as in a storm) you don't want to have the PC go through multiple power up / power loss cycles. It's analogous to a circuit breaker, where you have to reset it once it is tripped.

Of course, it's also possible that your machine has suffered some kind of HW failure, in which case you should be able to transfer your hard drive to a new cabinet and regain access to your data. Good luck with it

What kalabanta said is absolutely correct - slowly go down the checklist. [J.W.'s comment is really interesting, but you said you tried a new power supply, right?]

Here's what's bitten me before:
- Accidentally kicked chassis, unsocketted video card. Took five remove & re-insert attempts to re-socket correctly - even using other video cards! I tried everything on this one, even CPU changes.
- Incompatible card. I installed an Intel EtherExpress Pro/100 in an old computer, only to find out that it would not power on when it was installed. I hadn't pulled from power main, thinking that since power failed to come on, the power wasn't running. Near as I can tell, it was trying to talk to the card but not showing any power. It was a REAL scare when I pulled the card out and the system spontaneously turned back on - without touching any buttons.
- Broken motherboard. I took every precaution in the book when I changed my CPU fan. Cleaned with 99% Isopropanol, etc. Except I forgot to take the motherboard off of the tray. And pushing down on the latch cracked the board somewhere. Now, neither that CPU nor that motherboard work.

Hello,
Sorry to hear of your troubles..You have already got good advice but If I may, offer this..
I had a similar problem years ago that I thought was the power supply and too purchased another only to find out it was not the supply..It was my parallel printer went bad..Yes the printer..
My symptoms was also no post beep, no fans, no apparent power..I did notice that when I plugged in the AC power cord, the fans would momentarily move..
Anyway I think it would help that you un-plug all un-necessary devices that is needed to boot..One by one would be the best method but you decide.. The list of things suspected would be loose cards/memory etc, bad cable, bios/battery..If the above does not work look into you motherboard book and see how to clear the bios...There may be more but thats all I can think of right now...Goodluck,
jolphil

Thank you very much.
I tried to turn the computer on after (one by one) unpluging stuff that it didn't need and still nothing.

After talking with my brother, I am begining to suspect the CPU. I did notice that the fans were running rather high, especially when viewing/visiting flash sites. I had updated flash from 7 to 9 on the Linux box. The fans would run faster when editing large images in Gimp too.

Also, I had left one of the covers off of the computer to allow extra ventilation and recently, about a week or two ago, my husband had put the cover back on but hooked up extra fans. I'm begining to suspect that the extra fans weren't doing the job as well as I thought and the CPU must have burned out. Anyway, we shall see if I'm right after my husband swaps it with another one we might have lying around the house.

IF it does turn out to be the CPU, are there any settings that I can do so that this does not happen again?

A better heatsink, liquid cooling, using the Pentium 4 clock modulation (if you use a P4), using a lower TDP processor (not that the board supports any)...

Oh, and of course, actually watching the sensors to find out what the temperature is.

Still, Pentium 3 or better chips are supposed to be really hard to destroy. Have you seen the Toms Hardware video where they have a Pentium and an Athlon running, then pull the heatsink off of both?

Wait-how old is your computer? The problem may be that the battery on the motherboard is dead. Sounds stupid, but try and replace it and try to boot again.

As far as the drive, I assume you are familiar with Gparted (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gparted), you can reformat your drive and start over again. Try the battery before you buy a new processor.

With a new PS, one would ordinarily rule the PS out as the problem. However a hard short on the mobo or on any peripheral will cause the PS to either crowbar its outputs (shut 'em down) or to blow its onboard fuse. If the former has occurred, then you diagnose it by disconnecting the PS completely, then momentarily jumper Pin 14 on the motherboard connector to ground and see if the PS powers up. If it does then the PS is eliminated as the problem. If it doesn't then check and if necessary replace the internal fuse.

If the PS is shown to be good then the next most likely culprit is the motherboard. A filter cap could have shorted and be causing the problem.

I wouldn't expect a CPU failure to cause these symptoms. That is not impossible, but I wouldn't evaluate it as likely. A CPU failure will of course prevent POST or anything else, but the fans will run and usually indicator lights will come on.

Actually, hard shorts are generally pretty easy to isolate. You just need an ohmmeter and you need to know the pinouts of the various ports and connectors - all of which can be found on the web.

Good luck.

Thanks all, I will print out your suggestions for reference.

@ kalabanta:
It's pretty old. We had Windows ME and then Windows XP on it back in 2000 I think. I'm not familiar with GParted. I've only used whatever tool that SuSE has and I used it only when I installed SuSE a year ago. I only have about 11 GB left on the HD anyway and I make and store a lot of image files and videos.

@ ORBiTrus:
No I haven't seen that. Can you give me the link if there is a video on the web?

We fixed it! My hubby and I found out what was wrong. I said we because after my hubby got the computer to turn on and when the computer screen came up again, the graphics for the screen was text only because my husband had put in a new graphics card (I forgot about that!) and I had to figure out what should be done to configure it. (I had to use the sax2 vesa command).
Anyway, I'm so happy now!

I'll see soon enough how successful I was with the screen display when I restart the computer, lol.

update: "Tux" started up just fine this morning.

Heh. Here's the first result for google search '"remove heatsink" tomshardware'

No hits in the top 10 for the actual source page though...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/26293/s303706/


Basically, what is happening is that they both have built in temperature sensors which shut the system down - but the AMD ones in these oldish chipsets [don't know about new ones] couldn't handle it when the temperature increased so rapidly [they can only handle 10 degrees per second if I recall].


Glad you got the system working again!

Wow! When that AMD processor started to go up in smoke I could hardly believe it!

Is there a monitor utility that will tell me what the temperature of the cpu is? I hope that SuSE came with something like that.

Well looks like you are going to have to pay the piper for your bad moves and pony up for a new mother board and reinstall suse again.

Hard drive space is so cheap that you can get a 350 gigabyte PATA drive for some where in the ball park of $500-$250.