Any computer hardware gurus in here?

So I am about to throw my wife's desktop out the window to the ground below our apartment...

Computer is an HP a6130n originally installed with Windows Vista. Purchased November 2007. Originally crashed in April 2008. Sent in for warranty work, and HP claimed no hardware issues, just a failed Windows update. Refresh harddrive and all is fine. 2 months later, crashed again. Sent in again, this time they say bad sector on harddrive. Reformat and all is fine. 2 months later, again... and again... and again...

Eventually the warranty expired, and HP refused to help anymore without astronomical fees. Computer sat under the desk while we worked off my laptop for a year, then I got the motivation to work on it some more, and ended up installing Windows XP. Worked great for around 2 months, then crashed again. Threw it in the corner and it sat for a year.

Now this week, somehow I got tired of looking at it and since I am off school I decided to mess with it some more. Pulled the cover off and started running some tests. It would load in to BIOS, and I could do whatever in there. If I booted from the harddrive, it acted like there was no OS, and would just sit there with an OS error. I went to reinstall XP again, and it boots from the disk, and when it gets to the point to reformat, it fails saying the harddrive is corrupt.

Went out last night and bought a brand new 500g harddrive. Installed it, rain install, and it did the same thing, failing after 20% formatting. Put the old one back in and took the new one back to Best Buy. Not my issue. Took it in to work with me today and the IT guru at work checked some things and said it was my power supply. Brought it home, hooked it up and powered on. All worked how it was before. Unplugged, swapped out for new power supply, hooked up everything as before, and now the real trouble starts.

When I power it up, the fans kick on, you can hear the disk drives and harddrive spinning, but monitor never comes on and it keeps one long beep, one short beep, and then a 5 sec pause. Keeps doing this indefinitely. Looked up the BIOS sheet, and it says that relates to the memory being incorrectly installed. Pulled memory out, re-installed, and same thing. I have 3 gigs of memory, and even having each stick in one at a time it continues to beep. I pulled this power supply out and put mine back in, and it is doing the same thing now.

What could the issue be? I currently have the computer completely disassembled, laying bare bones on top of the tower on it's side. Only things installed are the CPU itself, the power supply, the power button, the monitor, and one stick of RAM. I did realize that if I only plug in the 20-pin harness, and not the 4 button harness, it will not beep, but the monitor still does not come on. Is this the harness for the CPU itself?

I have checked the board over, and it seems to be fully intact. Don't see any burn marked or broken wires.

At a loss here... just bought my wife a new MacBook for Christmas, so the desktop is not a necessity, but I would like to get some of my design programs for the business off of the laptop so I can speed it up for everyday computing...

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated...

If it does it with any of the 3 memory sticks installed its got to be something on the board itself.. Make sure the board is not grounding out and look on the backside and see if there are any cold or split solder points right around where the memory slots are.

What will that look like? Only thing i am seeing out of the ordinary is that about an inch fron there is a spot of "wire" that changes from green to copper. Is this a sign of the coating coming off?

The board is completely removed, sitting on a piece of cardboard so as to have no contact with anything metal...

Whats the model of the HP computer?

Normally I'd say chunk it. But this model was pretty much a beast when it came out and still specs out pretty decent for something you're gonna use around home.

Nice description of the problem BTW. Normally you get something like, "My computer is make a noise, what is it?" ... :)

There's a few things to do. Check the basic things first like, making sure everything is plugged in and seat properly... But a quick and easy way to do a test .... Take the motherboard out of the case which you've done. With nothing more than the CPU, ram and
video card . Connect the appropriate
power connectors from the power supply and see if it boots. Should get
one beep and then the bios or possibly the HP logo (some have
this and enabled by default, with a small script somewhere saying which
key to press to enter the bios). If it boots, then put the motherboard back in the case taking care to
make sure that all standoffs (the little brass nut type things) are
where they are supposed to be and not making contact anywhere but where
the mounting holes on the motherboard are.

If it doesn't boot while out of the case, there is a good chance that
the board is dead and time for
a replacement.


I'm guessing it's the mother board. You should be able to get one for a between $150 - $200.

The weird part is it does a post with no memory in the slots, but as soon as he puts even one stick in there it starts beeping like bad memory...

No, it beeps even when no memory is intact. Its an jp a6130n.