PC not working - I need help diagnosing the problem

[sabagamma]

My PC stopped working last night. Symptoms are as follows:

1. I heard the PC beeping a couple of times (like it does on boot) from the other room
2. When I had a look, the PC was running but there was no signal on the monitor
3. I rebooted with no change
4. I removed the external graphics card, flashed the bios, disconnected the DVD and the hard drive - still no change.
5. I noticed that the fan and monitor still receive power
6. I noticed that the hard drive light is on all the time, even with the hard drive disconnected

I feel comfortable fixing the thing, provided I can actually determine what the fault actually is. I suspect the motherboard, CPU is gone. What do you guys think?

I would really appreciate any advice, suggestions etc.

 

[snugam]

A few recommendations
Remove everything
If possible strip the motherboard from the casing too
Make sure there are no loose screws or anything metallic falling around in the case - this might cause the same symptoms
Use only one memory module
If your computer doesnt have an onboard display card, you'll need to leave that in too!
Switch on
If the error remains; try removing that Memory Module and replacing it with another one (assuming you have two or more)
Switch on again
There is a very low chance that both modules might be faulty; but it has been known to happen.

 

[Nod]

I cleaned my PC this week, and got the same symptoms. Forgot to plug in power to my gfx card.

Like Zabzoo said. Take out everything but the bare essentials, and go from there.

 

[Grimspoon]

Those symptoms could point to a faulty PSU, try get a PSU to test on your rig.