computer won't bootup after small hardware change

First of, I am a newbie at computer installation, I know enough to be
dangerous. Now that is out of the way ....

Got a machine from my mom and decided to throw some hardware in it and
another hard drive. First, before anything, verified that it would
boot when I got it. Booted fine.

Put in a new video card in the AGP slot, and added a USB 2 card in one
of the PCI slots. Put in another hard drive in instead of the one that
she had in it. Plugged it in and plugged in monitor and did not boot
up. Wasn't worried because that drive was giving me problems in my
other machine.

Put her drive back in, and restarted. Nothing. Put the old video card
in. Nothing. Took the USB 2 card out. Nothing. Changed the jumper
settings on the drive from cable select to master. Nothing. Switched
the cable from the motherboard to the drive with one that worked.
Nothing.

Put the drive in my other machine, boots up just fine.

I can see the light on the drive come up when I initially start up her
computer, but hear no boot sequence (like CD-ROM reading, or hard
drive reading). This is really strange because it worked initially.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to trouble-shoot this?
Can't imagine the BIOS is blown away or anything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
JJ

(Jimmy Jim) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> First of, I am a newbie at computer installation, I know enough to be
> dangerous. Now that is out of the way ....
>
> Got a machine from my mom and decided to throw some hardware in it and
> another hard drive. First, before anything, verified that it would
> boot when I got it. Booted fine.
>
> Put in a new video card in the AGP slot, and added a USB 2 card in one
> of the PCI slots. Put in another hard drive in instead of the one that
> she had in it. Plugged it in and plugged in monitor and did not boot
> up. Wasn't worried because that drive was giving me problems in my
> other machine.

Always install things one at a time.

> Put her drive back in, and restarted. Nothing. Put the old video card
> in. Nothing. Took the USB 2 card out. Nothing. Changed the jumper
> settings on the drive from cable select to master. Nothing. Switched
> the cable from the motherboard to the drive with one that worked.
> Nothing.
>
> Put the drive in my other machine, boots up just fine.
>
> I can see the light on the drive come up when I initially start up her
> computer, but hear no boot sequence (like CD-ROM reading, or hard
> drive reading). This is really strange because it worked initially.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to trouble-shoot this?
> Can't imagine the BIOS is blown away or anything.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
> JJ

You might have knocked something loose, like the CPU fan connector.
Check all the connections you can think of, and make sure the RAM is
in correct still.

Aaron

try hooking up a higher wattage power source to the system and run it
as u had it in the begining.
then add each componenet and boot each time.
if the comp doesnt boot with the original configuration the
motherboard probably shorted. the good tihng is u have another comp at
hand so u can check the individual componenets. my bet is the power
source though

Thanks for the response,

(Aaron) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> (Jimmy Jim) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> > First of, I am a newbie at computer installation, I know enough to be
> > dangerous. Now that is out of the way ....
> >
> > Got a machine from my mom and decided to throw some hardware in it and
> > another hard drive. First, before anything, verified that it would
> > boot when I got it. Booted fine.
> >
> > Put in a new video card in the AGP slot, and added a USB 2 card in one
> > of the PCI slots. Put in another hard drive in instead of the one that
> > she had in it. Plugged it in and plugged in monitor and did not boot
> > up. Wasn't worried because that drive was giving me problems in my
> > other machine.
>
> Always install things one at a time.

You know, I knew that but stupid me, I always learn the hard way.

>
> > Put her drive back in, and restarted. Nothing. Put the old video card
> > in. Nothing. Took the USB 2 card out. Nothing. Changed the jumper
> > settings on the drive from cable select to master. Nothing. Switched
> > the cable from the motherboard to the drive with one that worked.
> > Nothing.
> >
> > Put the drive in my other machine, boots up just fine.
> >
> > I can see the light on the drive come up when I initially start up her
> > computer, but hear no boot sequence (like CD-ROM reading, or hard
> > drive reading). This is really strange because it worked initially.
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to trouble-shoot this?
> > Can't imagine the BIOS is blown away or anything.
> >
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
> > JJ
>
> You might have knocked something loose, like the CPU fan connector.
> Check all the connections you can think of, and make sure the RAM is
> in correct still.

Fan is coming on, but I will double-check all the connections I can
find. Thank you very much for your response!

>
> Aaron

(lowTheoryhighLogic) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> try hooking up a higher wattage power source to the system and run it
> as u had it in the begining.
> then add each componenet and boot each time.
> if the comp doesnt boot with the original configuration the
> motherboard probably shorted. the good tihng is u have another comp at
> hand so u can check the individual componenets. my bet is the power
> source though

Thank you very much! I will check that out, that could very well be
it. It is very frustrating when things work, then they don't.

JJ