Can I please pick your brains over a pc hardware issue? >>

My friend's pc suddenly went off one day, I got him to check/swap power cables as the monitor still had power but no, the pc tower still dead as a dodo, not a beep, whir, no lights, absolutely nothing.

I assumed the pc power supply had gone so got him a new PSU, but now the machine is still dead, the only sound from the new PSU fan, no other lights or sound.

I assumed the motherboard was fried so we install a new one, the exact same model as the old one. The machine has lots of noise, cpu fan on, lights on, usb ports front and back powered up, cd-rom opens, but the machine still doesn't boot up, monitor says "no signal".

I assume the old PCI-E graphics card has gone so we replace that and guess what!?! yep, it still says "no signal" on the monitor. The monitor does work as we tested with a laptop.

So my options now:
1. Replace CPU
2. Replace Harddrive.

If the cpu was completely gone, would the cpu fan still come on as it works at the moment.

If the HD has had some horrendous failure should the machine still attempt to start up, ie get as far as the bios screen?

I'm not sure what to do next, anybody got any ideas, all feedback most welcome!

Thanks!

maybe ram?? Try new ram before cpu and HD replacement.

This might help along the way as well -
http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000607.htm

...from the second link -

Quote:

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Remove the RAM

If you continue to to receive the same problem with all the above hardware removed, disconnect the RAM from the Motherboard and turn on the computer. If the computer has a different beep code or if your computer was not beeping and is now beeping turn off your computer and try the below suggestions. Making sure to turn off the computer each time you're adding and removing the memory and then turning the computer back on to see if the suggestion resolves the issue.

Re-insert the memory into the same slot.
If you have more than one stick of memory remove all but one stick of memory, try rotating through each stick.
Try one stick of memory in each slot.
If you're able to get the computer to boot with one or more of the sticks of memory it's likely you're dealing with some bad memory. Try to identify what stick of memory is bad and replace it.

If you're able to get memory to work in one slot but not another slot. You're motherboard is defective you can either workaround the issue by running the memory in a different slot or replace the motherboard.

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something people need to start doing is testing EVERYthing before they go out and get new parts. I think i mentioned this to another flashkit user here before.

check everything!

start with the easy stuff, take out the ram one stick at a time, see if it boots.
Take out your video card/network card/ sound card one at a time, see if it boots.
Check the mother board lights, often times motherboards will have little led's that will alert you to exactly what the problem is.

The most frustrating and time consuming thing you can do is order one new part that for what "might" be broken, wait for it to show up, and find out nope that not whats wrong. waste of money, time.