Time for RMA #2?

[shadowbreaker513]

I've been plagued with problems with the system in my sig. About a year ago, I had a problem where when I turned on the computer, everything would turn on and beep correctly, but no display to the monitor. I took it to a shop, and apparently one of the wires in my PSU had come undone, so it wasn't supplying enough power, and the board itself was dying due to unrelated issues. I RMA'd the board, and switched to an old PSU and it worked fine. Starting in the fall, I began to be plagued with problems with my onboard sound, I assumed it was poor drivers with vista, but then my video performance started to suffer as well. Twice I came back after the computer went into sleep mode and it wouldn't wake up, and mid left4dead, the computer spontaneously shut off (temps were fine).

I had ordered a new hard drive, so I figured I may as well get to the root of these problems while I was working on it. I took everything out of the case, cleaned it all, repaired the old PSU (it had a self made extension, and the soldering job had just come undone, no actual electrical problems). I set it up on my table, and found that I had the same problem as before, although this time, I was actually getting an LED message, however, this said FF, which indicates a successful boot. I decided to just write the other PSU off as a total loss, and installed my old one. Same problem. I hooked up a spare that I keep for emergency testing. Same problem. Took out my RAM and tested stick by stick. Same problem. Swapped video cards and PCI-E slots. Same problem.Tried a different monitor. Same problem.

I reset the CMOS, and this time was greeted with a 7F error code upon boot, which means "Post error check - Check POST error and display them and ask for user intervention." This obvious was completely useless, as my monitor merely blinks idle, which is the entire problem. On a hunch, I plugged in my keyboard, and hit the usual buttons. When I hit delete, the code changed to 01, which according to the manual doesn't exist as an error code. This made the monitor go from being idle to just displaying black however, and eventually sitting switching between analog and digital, like when it is unplugged from the computer. I rebooted, and this time tried hitting F1. Upon hitting this the F7 code went to FF, which is successful boot, but again, nothing output to the monitor. There was also a clicking sound coming from the motherboard whenever I press a key on the keyboard after this.

My current thought is that when I RMA'd the board the first time, I was sent back the same board, and the problems finally hit a breaking point. I wanted to ask some alternate opinions though before I drop $40 for a local shop to test every one of my parts or start a second RMA on the board.

 

[Elledan]

What is the PSU and mainboard? Any other components which may be relevant?

 

[shadowbreaker513]

It's the system in my sig. The only part that isn't accurate is the Modstream, which is the PSU where the cable came loose so I replaced it with my old 480w Thermaltake.

I called eVGA last night to see if I could get anything out of them. The guy I got blamed it on the video cards. However, I find it a bit unlikely that not only would my card that's never given me problems die but that on the RMA I did last year, they mailed me a DOA sealed retail box 7950GT (never used in a system, as I got my 8800GTS before the RMA came back, and the money ran out on the system the 7950GT was going to go in). I'm starting to get more than a little pissed off, as so far out of the 3 eVGA products I've bought, 2 have died and if I want to believe tech support, it's 3 bought parts and a replacement upgrade they sent me after an RMA.