Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum, always found alot of helpful info here, and now I have a problem I can't solve.

I have an HP Pavilion that I replaced the motherboard, processor and power supply. The mobo and processor are the same as the old ones. On power up there is no post and no beeps. The monitor will display either a blank blue screen, or a blue screen with vertical white stripes.

I've verified connection of all cords, tried re-seating the mobo a couple times, powered up with nothing but RAM and processor, cleared BIOS, drained the CMOS battery and still nothing. I'm out of ideas. Any help, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Specs:

HP Pavilion a1247c
Mobo: AmethystM-GL6E
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
1 GB 3200
SATA HD
300w PS

Hi tcranker, welcome to SAF

Sounds like you forgot to connect something... or you shorted something.

First, make sure that the bottom of the motherboard you replaced is not touching the case, then, make sure all the connectors from the power supply are firmly connected to the board, including the 4 pins molex connector.



Now, check the front panel wires to the board. It's common to misplace some.
Remove the power (PWRSW) connection, pick a screwdriver and short the PWRSW pins (your computer must be plugged to the wall outlet and the power supply on/off switch set to ON).



The fans may start, and, maybe the whole system. If not, then, you have a problem.
btw, this 300 W PSU is barely enough to your system specs...

Let us know how it goes.

Chris

Hi Chris -- thanks for the reply -- I re-checked all the connections, including the 4 pin molex, I shorted the PWRSW pins and the system started up fine, but still no post or beeps. I still get the monitor screen with the white vertical stripes. Not sure what else to do. Thanks again for the suggestions.

Make very sure that the mainboard that you used is verified by HP as correct for the processor and other components. These proprietary, commercially-manufactured machines are always chancy when you substitute non-original parts, even if mountings do match. Unlike home-build components that are designed to be interchangeable, these commercial, retail parts are many times jobbed-out to sub-contractor manufacturers who build them as cheap as possible, designed to fit only certain other jobbers' parts.

Dell just posted their best earnings in their history, and executives stated the reason was "cheaper components used" in their computers.

Try to start with only the essentials:

- Motherboard and CPU,
- One stick of RAM,
- Video Adapter,
- Keyboard, and nothing else.

The system may start and allow you to get into the BIOS Setup Utility.
If it does not, you may think on a PSU, motherboard or CPU issue.

If it starts, add the other hardware, one at a time:

- Your harddisk (check if it's being recognized on BIOS),
- Other RAM sticks,
- Floppy Drive & mouse,
- CD-Drives,
- Expansion cards,

Any failure during those steps may pinpoint the problem.

Chris

Good point, ranchhand - As far as I know this mobo is an exact replacement. The manufacturer is MSI (user guide: http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7184-engl%20v1.x.pdf ) I checked it side by side with the old one and couldn't find any glaring differences.

Chris -- I've had a slight improvement based on your last suggestion. With only the CPU, mobo, 1 stick of RAM and keyboard I get the "HP Invent" splash screen, followed by the boot screen (showing all IDE channels empty) and a message that the default BIOS have been loaded and to press F1 to enter setup. On pressing F1 I am presented with either a blank screen and flashing cursor, or a screen with a messed up video display (sometimes jumbled characters, sometimes white "snow" flashing all about). Have you ever come across this?

Sorry for being so long in replying. As I said, unfortunately, these commercial manufacturers have very proprietary hardware, and this is a hard one. It appears that something is really wrong with the video on your board. It appears that your POST is good because you are seeing that screen, and the CMOS/BIOS is transmitting messages and acting normally.
The problem is when an attempt is made to start loading an operating system. That is where it hangs, and that is where only HP can help you because we have no way of knowing what configuration or parts they used, or what will work with their setup.

As a side thought, if you have data that you would like to salvage, we may be able to help you there.

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm going to return the mobo and get a new one. When testing the RAM I discovered that the second RAM slot must be bad. I had 2 sticks of 512 and both worked fine when inserted in the first slot one at a time, but whenever I put one in the second slot I would be right back to no post again. When the new mobo arrives I'll see what happens. Thanks again.

I had a Soyo mainboard do that to me once. It totally would not accept my memory sticks unless I had them spaced apart a certain way. Took me six hours to finally figure that out. After that it ran totally great, until it failed a few months later. Needless to say, I never purchased another Soyo product!