Computer breakdown!!!!(External HD)

HouseHippo

HELP!
Yesterday My Computer turned on by itself and began to flicker on and off....It wouldn't turn off unless I plugged out the external hard Drive.The Monitor and speakers still work but the mouse doesn't.The keyboard also flickers along with the buttons on the harddrive.
Also the Disc drives will not open so i cannot use the rebooting Cd's.
I'm a dj and depend heavily on my pc as it stores all my music!
It's an E Machines which I got ijn Christmas 2004. With an intel pentium 4 and Windows XP.I know it is an old model but I cannot afford at the moment to buy a new computer.

Any advice on what I can do to fix it.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Yesterday My Computer turned on by itself and began to flicker on and off

That sounds pretty f*cked up right there.
Do you mean the whole PC was powering up and down really quickly? or that only the display was flickering?

It wouldn't turn off unless I plugged out the external hard Drive.

Probably a good idea to leave that plugged out then until you can figure out what's wrong.

The Monitor and speakers still work but the mouse doesn't.The keyboard also flickers along with the buttons on the harddrive.

Is this with the external harddrive attached?
Also keyboard flickering I assume refers to the LEDs for numlock/capslock/scrolllock?

Also the Disc drives will not open so i cannot use the rebooting Cd's.

Did you try holding the eject button for a few seconds?
Did you try ejecting the drive before windows loads? (maybe jump into the BIOS and try'n eject there)

I'm a dj and depend heavily on my pc as it stores all my music!

If the whole PC tower is actually powering rapidly up and down, I'd be worried about what that's doing to the harddrive... if it were me, I'd physically remove the internal drive and make a backup on another computer with it attached as a slave drive.
Leave it out until things settle down.

If you can, you should download an ISO of a bootable stand-alone operating system like Knoppix, burn it to a CD and concentrate on getting a stable boot off of that.
You don't even need your harddrive connected to boot into this, so it's a good first goal in this case I think... just to see if the PC hardware is knackered or whether it's a driver (or other windows) problem.

Your post doesn't make it hugely clear whether all this is happening only when the external drive is connected though.

HouseHippo

The whole pc tower was powering non and off but the monitor was fine


Is this with the external harddrive attached?
Also keyboard flickering I assume refers to the LEDs for numlock/capslock/scrolllock?

Yes it was the led's

Did you try holding the eject button for a few seconds?
Did you try ejecting the drive before windows loads? (maybe jump into the BIOS and try'n eject there)
Yes i tried that several times

If the whole PC tower is actually powering rapidly up and down, I'd be worried about what that's doing to the harddrive... if it were me, I'd physically remove the internal drive and make a backup on another computer with it attached as a slave drive.
Leave it out until things settle down.

Not sure how to do that

I cant even load windows......i cant gain any access to the pc at all

Your post doesn't make it hugely clear whether all this is happening only when the external drive is connected though.[/quote]

DonkeyStyle \o/

Again, I'm not clear... do you only have these problems with the external drive attached? Or is it something the PC is doing no matter what?

The whole pc tower was powering non and off but the monitor was fine

How long was there between power on/off?
Was it power cycling like once or more per second?
Or did it just power off after it started loading windows? (maybe rebooting every 30 seconds)

It might be the PSU is knackered and struggling to stay alive, or any number of problems on the motherboard.

I'd say if the data on your main harddrive is essential, then that should be your first concern above all else.
From what I hear, spinning up and spinning down is stressful on the harddrive and it's where a lot of the wear and tear occurs... added to the possible power dips/spikes from a f*cked up PSU... maybe I'm just being supersticious but I wouldn't subject a drive with essential data on it to this kind of power on/off cycle.
I'd probably just leave the whole PC unplugged until you can get someone to look at it who'll take the drive out and back it up before proceeding further.

My first goal would be to whip out that harddrive, unplug/remove any non-essential hardware and try to get a stable boot off a knoppix CD.
If it fails at that point, you've narrowed it down to the core hardware components of the PC, at which point you can try parts-swapping with spare components until the problem stops... identify the faulty component and fit a permanent replacement.

Beyond getting your hands dirty with all this stuff, I really don't know what to tell ye.
If you don't feel comfortable digging around inside the guts of your PC and swapping out components, then I'm not sure what else you can do.
At best you could unplug all the USB devices, printers, speakers, mouse... move the PC to a different power outlet, swap power cables between the PC tower and the monitor... reset to the bios defaults... try opening the cd drive using the emergency hole + paperclip technique and using a restore CD (which may or may not wipe your drive completely).
But again, doing all of this means subjecting your harddrive to more on/off/on/off cycles while you troubleshoot... which I wouldn't be too thrilled about doing to my own harddrive really.

That's just my 2cent anyway, maybe stick around and see if anyone else has some better suggestions before doing anything.

Lazarus2.0

I'd try getting into BIOS (by hitting DEL or F2 or the relevant key on powerup) and checking the boot sequence . I'm thinking it may be that your system is set to boot from USB device before CD and Hard Drive . Possibly corrupt BIOS , but there are a lot of possibles at this point and it's a quickie to determine or rule out . You dont need to have the hard drive connected to get into BIOS and I certainly wouldnt attach the external drive again until you know what's causing this .
It's a long shot but there are a lot of things to rule out . If the BIOS/CMOS seem ok and there's nothing to try changing I'd disconnect all drives and USB headers and add and test one by one . Also remove the RAM and the Gfx card if you got one . Test with one stick of RAM only , if you got more than one stick try testing with the other to eliminate that as a cause (highly unlikely but worth eliminating in any case) .

DonkeyStyle \o/ is of course 100% on the money . Back up any data on your drive(s) before connecting them to this machine again .

pdevo

are you sure the power switch is not stuck or there is a problem with the switch because a pc cannot just turn itself on.

HouseHippo

yes im sure.i have a feeling one of my grandparents may have messed with it while I was out.

HouseHippo

The pc is do8ing it no matter what drive attached or not. I have everything backed up of course.Thats not a major problem its actually that i need to access them. Tomorrow ill remove everything. Set 8it back up again and hopefully it works if not...i gu8ess 8ill call a professional i dont want to f*ck it up even more

Lazarus2.0

Where in Dublin are you ? Calling out a professional would possibly cost you more than buying a new machine - which they may recommend in any case .

Scram

Just a wild guess but its possable your PC's Power supply or motherboard has failed.

i dont know how computer savy you are but try replacing the Power Supply Unit or check the cables inside the PC.