Computer won't post

Greetings. I see I'm not alone here in finding that your board has a lot of useful troubleshooting information. As such, I've a problem that I'd like your collective opinion on.

Like some others here I have a situation where my computer will not post. I have this problem with other computers in the past related to a bad mobo or cpu, but this machine is only a month old.

Basically, I had the computer on and was browsing the contents of one of my HDs when my computer shut itself down. After trying to reboot the machine, I got no posting beeep at all, and the red HD led came on.

I'm not sure the HD is actually the issue here, since I get NO posting. Indeed, I cannot even open my optical drive.

So I took the case apart, and the green led is lit up on the mobo, which means (I think) that its in standby mode. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

*edit

Let me add that all of the fans are spinning up fine when I power up the machine. The machine simply does not post, nor does it allow me to open my optical drive, which would have allowed me to do simple software/bios troubleshooting.

Also, I've been monitoring the temperatures in my case since I got the machine, and they haven't gotten higher than 50c. A little hotter than I would have liked, but by no means worrisome. Though, I was NOT monitoring the case temps at the time this issue occurred.

One last thing, I know a *bit* about computers. Not a lot, enough to muck around under the hood and know (usually) what the hell I'm looking at. But not enough to not justify taking it to professionals if there is a problem too complicated than I can handle. Keep that in mind!

Specs

Asus M3A mobo
AMD Athlon x2 5600
3 gigs of ram
to WD sata HDs
Nvidia 7800 gtx

Was running windows XP pro sp2

Cheers, and thanks for the help...

-S

The LED on the MB is usually a power on indicator (not standby). If this is on and the fans spin up when you press the power on that is a good start.

Silly question - does the MB have a piezo onboard or speaker connected (so you can actually hear its beep if they are there)?

If you have a multimeter, check the power supply voltages are correct on all the connectors.

The DVD not opening maybe a clue.
Is the DVD SATA or PATA?

It would be worth disconnecting the HDD's and seeing if that changes anything and lets you open the DVD. If you remove the data cable from the DVD and power the unit on and it still does not open then there is a power problem or faulty DVD.

Same exact thing is happening with me on the M3A. Any resolution to your problem yet?

you MUST have a system speaker (not multimedia speakers) attached to the mobo...
remove the mobo from the case...
remove everything but the memory...including the hard drives and optical drives...the system should either post or give a beep code...if you're sure there is a system speaker attached properly to the mobo and you get no beeps...remove the memory and if you still get no beeps...the mobo is trash...!