PC no POST problem

[Chryonn]

Ok, here's the deal. the PC will power on, all fans spinning but the monitor will not display, no POST as if there's no signal. what i've noticed is that the HDD light is flashing in batches of 4 after the GPU fan spins up. it does this about four or five times before doing nothing. the GPU in question is a stock GeForce GTX 280, the mobo is a P5N32-E SLI (more or less the specs i have listed). i should say that i've had similar problems like this before except a hit on the reset button would see it POST normally and load through to Windows.
anyone know about the four flashes thing? i'd hate to think the GPU has suddenly died. it was working fine during the day.

 

[twilyth]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but are you sure you have an internal speaker connected to the m/b? You can't rely on getting post codes from a sound card or on-board audio chipset.

Also, have you checked the power connections to the gpu? Is it powered just by the PCI bus or does it also require a 4 or 6 Molex connector as well?

 

[micropage7]

try to remove the vga then boot it again, does it works?
and what about your psu, does it give enough power?

 

[Bo$$]

Ok, here's the deal. the PC will power on, all fans spinning but the monitor will not display, no POST as if there's no signal. what i've noticed is that the HDD light is flashing in batches of 4 after the GPU fan spins up. it does this about four or five times before doing nothing. the GPU in question is a stock GeForce GTX 280, the mobo is a P5N32-E SLI (more or less the specs i have listed). i should say that i've had similar problems like this before except a hit on the reset button would see it POST normally and load through to Windows.
anyone know about the four flashes thing? i'd hate to think the GPU has suddenly died. it was working fine during the day.

try and clear the CMOS


have you changed anything in the PC recently, also when you power it on, does the green light turn on, on the GTX280?

 

[Chryonn]

thanks for all the replies. here's an update: after leaving it for 24h switched off at the wall, i thought i'd give it another boot up. still nothing. however, i remember doing something that might solve the problem: since this is an SLI mobo i swapped it into the other PCIE slot and lo and behold it works!
the weird thing is, this is the second mobo do this. it happened on the first and was sent back under RMA, unfortunately this board is now discontinued, so i purchased an identical one on the Bay and it was more stable that el Primo.
of course sticking it in the other PCIE slot meant that Windows had to reconfigure my display settings, a minor set-back.
the next thing i will do is re-seat it in the original (ie top PCIE slot) and see if it works again. in the past i've done this and it's worked fine. there's something weird with the P5N32-E SLI board and nVidia cards, i'd contacted Asus in the past but they seem to deny there are any compatibility issues.
however it got me thinking that my future water-cooled system, won't be able to handle the swap as there'd be no room.

@twilyth: this board doesn't have on-board internal buzzer. the power connections are fine. i haven't touched this PC in months and it booted up normally.

@micropage: one time i thought i had a problem with my PSU so i bought a new Corsair Modular one (850HX) which is more than enough to power my rig.

@Bo$$ i think next time i'll clear the CMOS first and re: the green light on the GTX280, i didn't know there was one! what does it do?

right now i'm happy. i was contemplating buying a new graphics card. good thing i didn't!

 

[Bo$$]

@Bo$$ i think next time i'll clear the CMOS first and re: the green light on the GTX280, i didn't know there was one! what does it do?

right now i'm happy. i was contemplating buying a new graphics card. good thing i didn't!

That tells you if it is working or not, i think, if you don't plug in the power i know it goes red...

 

[Chryonn]

well my happiness was short-lived. while i managed to write my update on the main PC shortly after it froze. ok, just another randomm freeze, i thought. however when i rebooted it it didn't into Windows at all, it hung at the welcome screen. second reboot and it hung before the last attempt. 3rd reboot and it's stuck at the beginning. i've tried it again and it's frozen at the BIOS check.

i've has this problem before, but i can't remember what i did to remedy it. anyone heard of freeze-ups like this? i thought it was my HSF separating from the mobo (which has happened in the past) hmm might need to re-TIM it.

UPDATE

so after re-seating it back in the topmost PCIE slot, the same thing happens, the fans spin, the opticals' LED lights up then dies down, the cycle repeats a few times then nothing, no signal to the monitor.

putting it back into the 2nd PCIE slot seems to work, the PC POSTs but it hangs. i've noted this before. the hangs seem to be random: last night i managed to get it working for 6 hours without one hang or freeze, i even played the Duke Nukem demo on Steam. but today and in the evening i couldn't get it to load past the POST screen - namely the Energystar logo. a couple of times it's gone on a little further than that but still hangs. i haven't been into Windows since Saturday. i haven't had much time to fully locate the source of these hangs.

can anyone tell me what it might be? bearing in mind that it does work when it wants to.