The problem came back after working for a couple of weeks. Here is a rundown of everything I've tried and a summary of the initial problem
This post might be kind of lengthy but I want to make sure I cover everything
First: The system I am working with:
HP Pavilion Media Center (m7580n)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual-core processor 4400
2G Ram
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE Graphics Card
320G Hard Drive
My sister called me and said she has no video output on the monitor. When I arrived I realized the CPU fan was running loud and I noticed the computer wasn't booting so I started rooting around inside.
Here is what I did
I blew out all the dust inside of the computer
I removed and replaced the CMOS battery
I reseated all the cards
I tried booting with each of the RAM sticks and then with no RAM.
Finally I removed the SATA Cable from the motherboard and reseated it. It started working. It worked for a couple of weeks and then the same problem came back.
This time I tried reseating the SATA Cable again, then moved the cable to another SATA Connection on the MB (there is 4 SATA on the MB but only 1 is used)
I Tried unplugging the power and IDE connection from the DVD/CD
I then took an old hard drive and used the (Master) Side of the IDE that is normally plugged into the DVD/CD. So the SATA drive was not in use at all
And I tried Reseating the CPU Fan power connection to the motherboard.
Nothing is working and I have a loud CPU FAN and no hard drive activity.
Thank You