What do you do when your PC won't do anything?!!

frobisher

I woke up this morning, turned on my PC and...... nada. Just the whirring of fans but a completely blamk screen and no response from any keys or commands. I've tried rebooting and even accessing the BIOS but no joy. I seemed to have a technology curse on me these last 2 weeks! HELP!!:eek:

kaizersoze

Where you able to get into the BIOS?
Any beeps from it as it tries to boot up?
Whats the make/model of the pc/motherboard?

Slaanesh

Exact same thing happened me last Thursday. Stripped down all non-essentials for POSTing, hard drives, cd-rom drives. The little LED on the motherboard just says "FF" which means BIOS/mainboard/Add-on card failure or something to that extent. The only thing I didn't try was removing the GFX card and see if it still stays on that code when I boot up.

The strange thing is it booted a couple of times after then froze in windows. Now no matter what I've done it won't boot. I'm guessing the motherboard is boned. Tried resetting CMOS and all that lark to no avail. This just happened after one of my 300gig SATA's failed

Bad week for computers.

Ruu_Old

Try reseating what add-in cards that you have there, as mentioned strip it down to the hard drive, video card and RAM. Then you can add in one by one and see where the error is.

frobisher

The PC is an Acer 1670. I noticed it has been acting strange this week by not reading all the RAM in it when I tried to install a new stick. Although I've gone back to only using the sticks that were in it orginally. I've tried accessing the bios settings but without any luck. Although I did read that this can take many gos to get right as there is a very small window for pressing F2 and without being able to see the screen it's tricky. I'm going to keep trying this I guess. Normally when it boots the bluetooth and wireless LAN buttons light up but then go off as windows starts, now they're just staying on. Even when I close the lid, the computer stays on.

I have so much important stuff on their and guess what? Yes you guessed it, not one single bit of it is backed up. AGHHH!! I am an idiot !! If anyone knows what to do I'll gladly clean the inside of their toilet bowl with my tounge or what ever else you might need!

(Mods: I know the unit is a lappy but the problem doesn't seem lappy specific. Any chance this thread can stay in here where the knowledge is?)

Garth Farley

I've a practically identical issue with a friends laptop of same brand (i'm trying to fix it).

On turning on the laptop, the power on led lights, hd spins up. That's it. No power to lcd screen. No fans or anything else. Battery will charge and keep hd spinning if I remove the mains.

I've it fully disassembled at the moment, nothing looks wring, no blown chips or diodes. Currently thinking it's a power conversion issue - a little transformer gone on the blink - or else it's a diode or resistor that's gone but doesn't look it.

Heard story of one guy who is a fireman, was able to find the blown diode by borrowing the an infra-red camera which shows him what is overheating, a blown diode lights up like a bulb on one of them! Anyone have a lend?
-GF

Jayce

having the same problem myself

its a small world eh?

Garth Farley

Serious Jayce? Acer lappy too? If it's happening a bit, must do a proper search of the net to see if some genius out there actually fixed it. It could be a design flaw. But I'll stumble along with my multi-meter until then!

uberpixie

frobisher wrote:

I have so much important stuff on their and guess what? Yes you guessed it, not one single bit of it is backed up. AGHHH!! I am an idiot !! If anyone knows what to do I'll gladly clean the inside of their toilet bowl with my tounge or what ever else you might need!

(Mods: I know the unit is a lappy but the problem doesn't seem lappy specific. Any chance this thread can stay in here where the knowledge is?)

Proactive step to take:
Find out if your lappy hard drive is IDE or SATA.

Then buy an external case for 2.5" hardrives.

i.e.http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=317452 (sata hard drives)

Fit in harddrive, got to a working PC and back your stuff up by USB....

Won't fix your lappy but at least you back your files back and can still look for a solution to fixing it.
(If the hard drive is ok that is)

frobisher

My sister's computer decieded to have a bit of a fit this week too. My Go folks, what's going on? Is technological armegedon finally here? Time to break out the abacus'!

GART: Any tips? A freind suggested looking inside for a battery that when removed would reset the cmos but I can't see one. Maybe I just need to chisel in further?

frobisher

uberpixie wrote:

Proactive step to take:
Find out if your lappy hard drive is IDE or SATA.

Then buy an external case for 2.5" hardrives.

i.e.http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=317452 (sata hard drives)

Hi UberPixie,
Forgive me my noobism, but what exactly does it do? Am I right in guessing it's an adapter for connecting a laptop drive to a PC by USB?

kaizersoze

frobisher wrote:

Hi UberPixie,
Forgive me my noobism, but what exactly does it do? Am I right in guessing it's an adapter for connecting a laptop drive to a PC by USB?

It's an external hard drive case that will accept your 2.5 inch laptop hard drive. You can then plug it into another pc (via USB) and retrieve your data.
You can also get an adapter that will allow you to connect your laptop hard drive directly to another PC. Like this one: http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=103373

Garth Farley

frobisher wrote:

GART: Any tips? A freind suggested looking inside for a battery that when removed would reset the cmos but I can't see one. Maybe I just need to chisel in further?

The CMOS battery is about the size of a 2cent coin, bright silver, on the motherboard itself - it usually takes a fair bit of disassembly to see it. You can try taking the battery out - just pops out with a little persuasion from a screwdriver - leaving it out for about 5 minutes to allow all the charge to vanish, then put it in. Hopefully when you turn the laptop back on it'll give you signs of life.

Frobisher, how old is your laptop? You say it has bluetooth & wifi, it can't be that old. Is it much outside warranty?
-GF