Please help dead PC

[neeel]

Hi all,

I finished a session last night, went to switch the PC off and it hung on the windows is shutting down screen. I had to press the reset button to turn it off.

I thought I had better see if everything was ok so I switched it back on and it won’t boot. This is what happens in order.

1. Power up
2. HDD light comes on and stays on
3. Fan starts and stays on
4. Monitor clicks once and then returns to standby orange light immediately.
5. HDD light goes off.
6. Fan stays on.
I have taken out and unplugged everything other than the video card and hard drive...Nothing!

What do you think it is? Mobo, Processor, RAM, Bios needs resetting? HDD???

Help me DUC Kenobi, you’re my only hope!
neeel.

[Bastiaan]

for a test, remove every card in the system except the graphics adaptor. Also disconnect the ribbons to the hd's. Try to get in your BIOS, and see if you can figure out what's going on.

[jazzmandan]

Most likely a HD failure. You can check this by booting the system from a system or bootable floppy disk or cd. Then try to access the HD via the DOS command "cd c:\"

jazzmandan

[Bastiaan]

His monitor/graphics card doesnt switch on. Makes it kinda hard to type and see the result of typed commands. Thats why i was reccomending to strip the system to have some video atleast. Then he can set the BIOS in safe-mode or something like that, and then find out what the problem is. I agree on the HD though.....probably gone...

[wolfskin]

By your desciption, you're not seeing a BIOS splash screen? Did you use to?
If so (because this comes from the EEPROM on the motherboard) this would indicate that the HDD isn't the problem. Other ideas: 1. Maybe re-seat your RAM, AGP, and PCI cards. 2. Check the on-board battery / reconfigure your BIOS if needed. 3. If you can't get to the BIOS, I'd suspect your graphics card, or more unlikely, your motherboard. 4. If you CAN get to the BIOS, try to boot in safe mode. If you can't boot, THEN it may be the HDD. If you can boot in safe mode, uninstall / reinstall the display drivers.

The more info you give us, the more likely we can accurately help you.

Hope this helps...

[neeel]

Thanks everyone for your replies so far.

I have stripped everything down to just leave the Video card and it's still the same. I cant get into BIOS, the boot up process doesnt even get that far.

I have re-seated the RAM, disconnected the SATA cable and receonnected, disconnected the mobo power cable and receonnected, disconnected the HDD power cable and receonnected. reseated the Video card. Still nothing.

I cant even boot into DOS via a floppy!

Where is the on board battery? Is it the small silver disk aout the size of a 10p?

I doubt it is the Video Card as it doesnt even seem as if the Boot process goes even close to being able to display the original Intel Pentium 4 screen.

If I plug the HDD into another SATA on another PC and it can read it then I could rule the HDD out.

Is there a way of resetting the BIOS to the default settings via a jumper or something?

Thanks again
neeel

[Bastiaan]

Where is the on board battery? Is it the small silver disk aout the size of a 10p?

Yep, that's it. Usually holded down bty a clip of some sort.

Check the documentation of your mobo. Usually there is some jumper you can set to "Clear the CMOS".

You could rule out the graphics card and your monitor by installing the graphics card and monitor on a different system. Doesn't even has to boot. The splash/BIOS is enough. That is proof your card/monitor combo is still functioning.

[neeel]

Thanks Bastiaan,

I'll give those sugestions a go.

Neil.

[bigd]

I've seen this happen when the RAM goes bad. Try swapping the RAM just as a test. Be sure to ground yourself to the chasis first of course to prevent static discharge. Cause you never know...

[neeel]

I will try the RAM

Thanks
neeel.