Pc suddenly dead

mickdw

Im lookng for help.
My pc was fine, power then tripped off due to another faulty item in the house and now it wont turn on. When I try to switch it on, all that is happening is that the fan in the power supply is running (maybe somewhat slower than normal) and not alot else happening.
I changed the power supply and this made no difference.
Anyone any ideas or ever some basic procedures to try to diagnose what the issue is.
Also, if I was to go for a new machine, is there likely to be issue with swapping over programs such as an old autocad program that I use but no longer have the disc for? The current machine is running windows 98.

yoyo

mickdw wrote: »

Im lookng for help.
My pc was fine, power then tripped off due to another faulty item in the house and now it wont turn on. When I try to switch it on, all that is happening is that the fan in the power supply is running (maybe somewhat slower than normal) and not alot else happening.
I changed the power supply and this made no difference.
Anyone any ideas or ever some basic procedures to try to diagnose what the issue is.
Also, if I was to go for a new machine, is there likely to be issue with swapping over programs such as an old autocad program that I use but no longer have the disc for? The current machine is running windows 98.

Swapping over programs will likely be impossible, especially a version programmed for windows 9x OSes. Sounds to me like the PSU may have killed the mobo. You can take the hard disk out and put it in another machine to copy the files off it. I'd say beyond the usual reseating components (RAM etc.) the machine is for the dump if its that old

Nick

Torqay

The beauty of Windows 98 was that you could move your hard drive easily from one computer to another. Of course, there is not a hope in hell that you'll find device drivers for a modern machine for such an ancient OS, however, all is not lost.

1. Create a Ghost image of the hard drive.

2. Install VirtualBox (or any virtualisation software of your choice), create a new virtual machine and choose Windows 98 as Operating System.

3. Restore the Ghost image to the virtual hard disk (create a static VHD big enough to hold the amount of data on the original disk).

4. Boot up the Windows 98 VM and it should detect all the virtual hardware.

I don't think the guest addons will work for 98, so you may have to make do without such goodies as mouse & keyboard uncapture, seamless mode, etc. but otherwise you should be able to use your old software just as you used to. .

Nothingbetter2d

mickdw wrote: »

Im lookng for help.
My pc was fine, power then tripped off due to another faulty item in the house and now it wont turn on. When I try to switch it on, all that is happening is that the fan in the power supply is running (maybe somewhat slower than normal) and not alot else happening.
I changed the power supply and this made no difference.
Anyone any ideas or ever some basic procedures to try to diagnose what the issue is.
Also, if I was to go for a new machine, is there likely to be issue with swapping over programs such as an old autocad program that I use but no longer have the disc for? The current machine is running windows 98.

unplug the pc from the wall socket.... wait 2 mins to allow tha capacitors to fully discharge.... then plug back in and try start it up.

Torqay

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

unplug the pc from the wall socket.... wait 2 mins to allow tha capacitors to fully discharge.... then plug back in and try start it up.

The TS already swapped the PSU, so it's fairly safe to assume that the mainboard has been disconnected from any power source for much longer than 2 minutes.

mickdw

I think what i will do is put the hard drive into another machine, save all my files onto my 250gb external drive, buy a new machine, get new version of cad software (which should open and be compatible with the older files anyway) then load all stuff from external drive onto that. Does that sound like a plan.
Is there likely to be any problem reading the stuff off my drive when put into another similar era machine?

Torqay

mickdw wrote: »

Does that sound like a plan.

It sure does. Computing and indeed AutoCAD have taken quite a few quantum leaps since 1998. Time to move on.

AutoCAD is quite expensive though and I doubt you are eligible for an upgrade, you'll probably have pay the full price. But who knows, maybe they do value your good self as a loyal customer after all these years.

mickdw

Torqay wrote: »

It sure does. Computing and indeed AutoCAD have taken quite a few quantum leaps since 1998. Time to move on.

AutoCAD is quite expensive though and I doubt you are eligible for an upgrade, you'll probably have pay the full price. But who knows, maybe they do value your good self as a loyal customer after all these years.

Ya, will have to see what can be done on the cost of Cad.

Torqay

mickdw wrote: »

Ya, will have to see what can be done on the cost of Cad.

Depending on your needs, you might even find some adequate open source CAD alternatives.