Computer Woes

Grim/Don

Grim/Don

Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
1,221
Thursday night, my son's computer died. (Dell Studio) I took the cover off and vacuumed a bunch of dust out, especially under the CPU fan. Plugged it back in and nothing. Mouse and keyboard don't light up (we have light-up boards for late night gaming) and nothing shows on the monitor. We pulled my old Dell (Dimension E510)out of the basement and hooked that up. It was working fine (well, a bit slower, but to be expected) I updated the anti-virus and everything was going great... until...

Tonight, he was surfing the net and had just hooked up his camera to copy over and edit some of his skateboarding vids and... the old one died too! :grumpy: Screen died and it won't boot. I swapped hard drives from the new one to the old one in hopes, but nothing. I pulled the video card out and hooked the monitor into the motherboard port... still nothing. I was hoping the power supplies were the same so I could swap them, but no dice.

I'm gonna pull the hard drive back out and put it in my computer as a second drive (son is worried all his skate vids may be hosed); I figured that would be a way to check that the HD is still okay.

Any ideas? I hoping it's not the motherboard but don't know of any ways to test that. If I put the HD in mine and can't reach it than I can confirm that's bad.
 
Sounds like the power supply. Does it beep all on start up? finish the POST...
 
It's a bit confusing because now you have two machines on the fritz.

If you have zip-a-dee-doo-dah for power on the first machine, then I'd start with replacing the power supply. This is the cheapest of all the things you could be looking at.

If the second machine has power, but no screen, I'd start with the monitor. Hook it to a third machine and see if it works. If the monitor works on the third machine, but not on this second one, it might be the video controller. These days, the video controller is usually part of the motherboard. You should be able to buy a video board and run it on an expansion slot. But, it might make more sense just to put in a new motherboard and CPU.
 
Power supply, motherboard, or CPU. If it gets power and all the fans spin up but it doesn't nothing (and you've ensured the monitor works), it's probably the motherboard. If nothing spins up and you push the power button only to find literally nothing happens, probably the power supply. If it was the HDD that wouldn't stop it from trying to boot up, it would get to a certain point and tell you there's no boot drive detected.

And never use a normal vacuum cleaner around a computer, for sure don't actually vacuum parts off.
 
I agree with knarfeng. The power supply might have dropped pwer to one of the molex/SATA power rails. It happens quite easily and frequently ffom my experience. I'd be fairly sure the videos are alright. You can recover them with a USB to SATA connector, qit will allow the hard drive to show up on a working computer as an extra drive.

On the other hand, if the motherboard is gone as stated, it would be a more tricky issue. Hard drive controllers can die out from power surges and the like. The lights would work and it would look functional, but at the same time, each board has different diagnostics to determine what is wrong.
 
Can you hear the fan spin on the motherboard but PC won't start up when you push the power switch?
If so, then very sure RevDevil has the right diagnosis. Also had this a few times
 
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On a related note, a client lost a server (no power to the HD or mobi). I replaced the power supply, and I could not get the server to boot even rhough it had power. After about an hour of trying different things, I could not get the motherboard to show any diagnostic coes at all, yet some of the lights were on (ethernet would flash with a cat5, etc). One of the more infrequent issues being a server and all.
I later found out the power button on the mother board was friend, the HDC was friend, and the Northbridge was friend. A NAS is now in place filling the role as a file server for their company, it's much faster for them to retrieve files, clip art, and huge Excel documents. :D

If you are inclined to troubleshoot it yourself, and have the time, replace the connector going to the hard drive with a different one from the same PSU, if that doen't work you can try connecting a multimeter to the pos/neg on the various power connectors and see if you get any readings (they should be at least 11V of higher). That will tell you if you have a bad cable in the power supply.

Also for future protection as an online gamer myself for the last 10 years, you might consider getting a quality battery backup. They pay for themselves over time.
 
jfindon said:
Power supply, motherboard, or CPU. If it gets power and all the fans spin up but it doesn't nothing (and you've ensured the monitor works), it's probably the motherboard. If nothing spins up and you push the power button only to find literally nothing happens, probably the power supply. If it was the HDD that wouldn't stop it from trying to boot up, it would get to a certain point and tell you there's no boot drive detected.

And never use a normal vacuum cleaner around a computer, for sure don't actually vacuum parts off.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's the motherboard, as that's exactly what happens.

Thanks for the help guys. I was 99% sure the videos on the HD would be fine. I'll have to get a connection cable and hook it it. (the son just learned kick-flip to rail slide, and wants to share with his FB friends)
 
Grim/Don said:
Sounds like it's the motherboard, as that's exactly what happens.

Thanks for the help guys. I was 99% sure the videos on the HD would be fine. I'll have to get a connection cable and hook it it. (the son just learned kick-flip to rail slide, and wants to share with his FB friends)
Click to expand...


You might want to check the capacitors on the board to see if any are leaking and/or bulging, because that would only prove the case further.
 
roughneckrob said:
Thats what I did, almost two years latter my mac book pro has not crashed or gotten a virus and it seems like whenever I plug something into it, it works.
Click to expand...

And my PC hasn't crashed or had a virus in 5 years, what's your point? Last time I checked, Apple still uses typical hardware that can fail at any time, and can still be knocked out by power surges etc. OP's problem has nothing to do with the fact that he owns Windows based computers.
 
Protect your system with with power surge strips, I use Newport, there are many kinds and models.
Good for macs and pcs. :)
Sorry for the ot.

Doug
 
jfindon said:
And my PC hasn't crashed or had a virus in 5 years, what's your point? Last time I checked, Apple still uses typical hardware that can fail at any time, and can still be knocked out by power surges etc. OP's problem has nothing to do with the fact that he owns Windows based computers.
Click to expand...

I've owned Apple portables for the last 15 years. The only major hardware problems I've encountered are:
• Bad RAM chip. Under warranty, I replaced it with a bigger chip.
• Power port snapped off the motherboard, around '96-97. Used to be a common issue for portables, repaired under warranty.

I've never had a virus, spyware, malware of any sort on any of my machines. Apple gets a bad rap for being "the same thing" as a PC in a more expensive package, when they're really bombproof machines.

Because the OP has had issues with 2 PCs dying, which is consistent with what I've seen with friends and girlfriends deal with owning PCs, I don't feel bad suggesting his next purchase be an Apple product.

I can't tell you how many times we've had to reinstall my GF's current HP laptop, and she uses it as a dedicated word processor. Seems like every other update causes a hardware issue that wasn't there before, or stops a port from working.

Not trying to derail the topic, just saying "consider buying an Apple computer" is a valid suggestion to someone who's had two PCs fail on them.
 
There's a horrible joke:

Computers are like air conditioners. They don't work properly when you open Windows :D
 
The odds are low, but you might want to try plugging it in without the battery and starting it. This has worked for a couple of my Dells where the battery was causing the short.

If/when you go to replace it, I wouldnt go with a Dell, I was very dissatisfied with the very high end one I bought two years ago. Toshibas have lasted pretty long for me. All that being said im smitten with my new MBP.
 
Hi. Good luck troubleshooting your PCs!

I googled Dell Studio Post Codes and 2 beeps means your RAM wasn't detected. You said you already fiddled around with RAM but if there are more than two sticks you could try taking one out, restarting and then alternate. If you have a bad stick of RAM it would mess things up.

If you can't fix your computers then I too suggest getting a Mac. We have 2 Macs and one PC in our house, I use both Win 7 and OSx and I find I have very few issues with my Mac.
 
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