Berkeleying computer!

So, my son's computer takes a dump this morning. Newest box in the house at 1 year and a week. AMD A6-5400 on an MSI FM2 mobo. Worked great yesterday. This morning, nothing. No video output. At all. CPU fan spins up, random voltage check shows PSU is functioning normally.

Looking for a cheap fix. Everything else in the box is also just a year old. Guessing I'll mail order something since my local guy is pretty much stocking only intel stuff.

Anybody recommend a durable FM2 AMD motherboard?

Why is it that the new stuff is the stuff that breaks? I also have a $1000. Kitchenaid dishwasher that is a year and a half old. Yes, it leaks! Gah!

Does it give any POST codes (beeps)? Is there any diagnostic display on the mainboard?

Does the system have any sort of diagnostic indicator?

A cheap fix would be to reseat the memory, test modules one at a time. You could also unplug everything until you have just the motherboard, processor, and 1 ram module.

There appears to be a piezo speaker on the board, but it makes no sound. Pretty sure it never has. I can't get any indication of a POST. I have reviewed the manual, and found that the only POST output is via video.

I've already pulled all the peripherals. Still no video output. Even tried a different monitor.

try different video connections (swap hmdi cable, use DVI ports) my system did this for a while turned out to be a dying hdmi cable that was fixed by swapping to DVI cable THEN swapping to an HDMI cable. ALso if that motherboard has onboad video and you have a video card installed, swap between those outputs. It has been noted in the past that some users like to play with bios settings and not tell tech support.

First monitor was VGA, second was DVI, both nothing. I'm using onboard video. I will see if I have a compatible video card and try that.

I put the system together a year ago, and it worked great until this morning. No changes.

Did you try cleaning the junk out of the mouse? Jiggling the cords? Blowing in the CD drive?

Haha. I just stuck an old PCI video card in it, and still nothing in the way of video output.

One thing I find interesting is that the LED on the power button is flashing, and I'm pretty sure it didn't do that before. I wonder what it's trying to say? Mobo problem? PSU problem? History would point to PSU, but voltages seem normal. Hmmmm.

Have you cleaned your mouse balls?

Is there anything in the mainboard manual about power LED error codes?

If the LED is flashing, it's probably a code of some sort, which means it's trying to tell you something... is there a way to look that code up (i'm no expert... but I did stay at a Holiday in once).

I can find nothing regarding power supply led blinking. There is nothing in the motherboard manual about troubleshooting anything.

Hmm. New development. After repeated on/off cycles, it actually showed signs of life. Not coincidentally, the power led stopped flashing. Looks to be a PSU issue. Shoulda known!

We had an older pc that would flash the power light when it couldn't find something crucial to the boot up process. Usually it was the RAM chips, and if we pulled them out and cleaned the contacts with a pencil eraser, all would function normally again...

Here is what I would do if it were mine. take everything apart, gut the computer. Pull the CPU, RAM, everything. Blow the dust out clean everything out and put it back together and see what happens.