PC Won't Work. HELP!

Stephen P

Last night I was on my PC and it suddenly shut down on me but the power fan kept running. I held in the power button and it switched off. I then turned it back on and the power light didn't come on but the power fan came on and the orange light thats beside the little pic of a bin was on. I plugged it out and left it over night then this morning I plugged it back in and it wouldn't turn on for me so I thought the power was blown. I went into PC World today and explained what happened and they said if the Intel chip was brown or burnt then the motherboard was blown and also the power supply was gone because there was a horrible smell off it. I bought a new power supply and went home to check if the Intel was chip was burnt but it wasn't so I installed the new power supply. I turned the PC on then and it powered up with the green power light on but nothing came up on the screen. It's like the hard drive is frozen and not working at all.

Can anyone help me? I'm in an internet cafe now to try to get it sorted.

I would be EXTREMELY grateful if anyone can help me. I very afraid I've lost everything on my two hard drives.

Ruu_Old

Try the trial and error method, perhaps something shorted out your system. Any power surges or anything at your house? Remove everything but the bare essentials and see if you get any response, then add each card one by one until you find which is at fault.

Stephen P

Ruu wrote:

Try the trial and error method, perhaps something shorted out your system. Any power surges or anything at your house? Remove everything but the bare essentials and see if you get any response, then add each card one by one until you find which is at fault.

If one of the cards is broken shouldn't the PC at least come on? Shortly after the PC knocked off last night the sockets went in the kitchen. None of the sockets in my bedroom went though and the monitor was working fine. Could have been a power surge???

Ruu_Old

I often came across a PC that had a broken modem or other device that was blown by a power surge (PC would do nothing at all), removed it and the PC worked fine and no further damage was done. Something in your PC must have tripped the switch in your house, I reckon it was the power supply that just packed in. Its hard to say if any other damage was left behind, you might be lucky.

Stephen P

Ruu wrote:

I often came across a PC that had a broken modem or other device that was blown by a power surge, removed it and the PC worked fine and no further damage was done. Something in your PC must have tripped the switch in your house, I reckon it was the power supply that just packed in.

It was a pre-assembled PC when I bought it and since then I've installed an extra hard-drive, a new DVD-ROM drive, audigy sound card so any of these could be gone? The graphics card is on its own in the computer but if thats the problem I've no way to know unless I buy a new one. Would the motherboard light being on steady indicate a blown device?

Ruu_Old

I think the green light staying on all the time on the motherboard indicates a short of some kind of another or a bad connection, not 100% sure though. Is the CPU fan going?

jpfahy

Take all cards out except the graphics card. Disconnect all drives including Hard Drive. Try to boot computer. If nothing appears on screen then your motherboard, cpu or graphics card is blown. I would expect to hear a beep if there was a memory or graphics card error. In the absence of that I would suspect the CPU or mobo. Are you sure your monitor is working ? Substitution of components is the only real way to identify the problem.
Give some more details on the make/spec of the machine

gamer

even if mobo or cpu gone,the data is still there on your hard drives,open up pc,look at mobo,is there any dark marks on it,black, indicates a short circuit.is it pentium 4 or 3 or amd athlon?If its got an onboard vga 15pin socket,switch monitor cable to that.tuen on pc, leave case off,is the graphics card fan coming on, is the cpu mainchip fan coming on, if pc mobo overheating it won,t boot up anyway.Take out agp card switch to onboard mobo vga video output if there is vga onboard mobo.

Stephen P

Back in internet cafe again...

I disconnected sound card, DVD-ROM drive, modem (which I don't use anymore) last night and nothing. I also disconnected graphics card just to see if the orange light stops, but nothing the orange light is actually flashing instead of a steady on. I disconnected the second hard hard and still nothing. The CPU fan is working fine I don't have a fan on the graphics card. There are no brown marks anywhere on mainboard. I don't think I have a onboard vga 15pin socket, what does this look like? Them monitor is defo workings its only 1 month old.

The machine is an emachines 770, 2.4 ghz pentium 4, 80gig HHD & 200gig HHD, 512MB memory, its about 3 years old. I think I'm going to have to bring it into somewhere to be looked at. Might be a good excuse to get a new machine

jpfahy

To make sure the monitor is working press one of the tuning buttons on the front of it and see if the menu comes up. If a component is going to fail it usually does when its nearly new. You haven't said whether there are any beeps or not. Most pcs give a beep soon after power on. Put a finger against the hard disk as you boot the pc and you should be able to feel it spin up. BTW with all drives (including hard drives) disconnected a pc will still work, it will just stop at the end of whats called the POST (power on self test) at which stage it looks for an Operating System on a hard disk. By that time you should have seen various things flash up on the screen. Thats why I asked you to disconnect everything (except the video). On board video means you will have another connector for the monitor built into the motherboard. Try taking out the memory sticks and when you boot the machine you should get some beeps to signify a memory error. If there is no display/beeps/hard drive spin then its your cpu or mobo. Substitution being the only way to find out which....

Urban Kaos

Dare I say that it could be the BIOS thats fried like an overdone KFC fillet burger?

Again any indication of BIOS beeps (providing its still with us) will give an accurate idea of whats wrong with it.

I think you'll find a green power light indicator on the m/board is just to signify there is power going to it rather than a short curcuit.

As daft as it may sound just double check the molex connector going to the motherboard, may be enough for it to think its got power but not actually power up. Also some motherboards have 24 pin connections (extra four pins are for the safety of CPU in case of power overload as far as Im lead to beleive), may be worth giving that a once over.

Good luck mate. :cool:

Stephen P

I disconnected the two HHD's last night and all other devices except memory. Orange light went off when HHD disconnected and starts flashing once the HHD is connected. There are no beeps at all. There is also nothing happening with the HHD when the PC starts up, no spinning sound or anything.

jpfahy

mobo or cpu is dead

Anti

stephen p wrote:

I disconnected the two HHD's last night and all other devices except memory. Orange light went off when HHD disconnected and starts flashing once the HHD is connected. There are no beeps at all. There is also nothing happening with the HHD when the PC starts up, no spinning sound or anything.

HHD'S . what on earth are they ?

im presuming you mean HDD'S ( hard disk drives )

Sounds like your motherboard has packed in tbh.

If your not hearing any beeps, it means your system speaker is not connected to the mobo

Stephen P

anti wrote:

HHD'S . what on earth are they ?

im presuming you mean HDD'S ( hard disk drives )

DOH!! Yea I mean hard disk drive's! lol

Stephen P

If I ended up getting a new computer and my hard drives where ok, could I use my c:\ & second hard drive?