Help Dead PC

[Rubber Bullets]

HI All,

My desktop just died.

I was happily playing Just Cause 3 when everything went black. No bang, no fizz, just black. It seemed to try and restart itself immediately but nothing happened, and hasn't happened every since.

The power switch does do something, when pressed the PC sounds like it normally does, fans power up but I get no post at all, it just sits there whirring away but nothing else. The er switch, when held does switch it all off again.

To be fair it is a pretty old machine, I built it about 5 years ago if I remember right, based on a 2.4 GHz i5 chip. Last year I put in a new graphics card an R9 280 which I needed to play GTA 5 and a new 500Gb SSD which improved boot times but it was going OK. It was running Win 10.

I was planning to build a new machine this year, I guess this has just made those plans a bit more urgent, I'm hoping that the graphics and hard drives are Ok still, will just need chip , mobo, memory, cooler and possibly PSU, I can't remember what is in it, at least 500w I think.

The PC originally had Win 7, recently upgraded to Win 10. Is it possible to put Win 10 straight on any new build using the old licence?

Any thoughts?

Cheers

RB

 

[Raven]

First thing to do is try and identify which component is knackered or miss-behaving.

Take the graphics card out first and plug the monitor into the motherboard. If you get into windows then you know its the graphics card.

Do the same with the RAM, if you have multiple sticks then test them all on their own.

 

[caLLous]

The power switch does do something, when pressed the PC sounds like it normally does, fans power up but I get no post at all, it just sits there whirring away but nothing else. The er switch, when held does switch it all off again.

Take everything out and reseat it. By everything I mean the RAM, the graphics card, both cables from the PSU to the motherboard (the 24-pin ATX one and the 4 or 8-pin CPU one). It sounds like the PSU is ok, the graphics card being dead wouldn't prevent the POST from happening (you would at least hear beeps - assuming the PC speaker is plugged into the motherboard of course) so my guess would be motherboard/CPU/RAM. I'd disconnect anything non-essential too (CD-ROM, only keep the boot disk plugged in).

The PC originally had Win 7, recently upgraded to Win 10. Is it possible to put Win 10 straight on any new build using the old licence?

Although I haven't tried it (I was actually given a Windows 10 product key by MS support), you can apparently do a clean install of Windows 10 with a Windows 7/8 product key.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks guys, that's my weekend sorted.

Assuming it is mobo/cpu I will buy a whole new set-up to put into the old case with hard drives etc.

What do you guys think of something like this:

DEFCON 3s - Asus Z170-K - Intel Core i5 6600K @ 4.20GHz - Overclocked Skylake Bundle

RB

 

[TdC]

Heya chumlar. Tbh while OCUK won't steer you wrong with a pre-overclocked bundle, it will mean it's going to be slightly more expensive than it needs to be. Be aware that OC'd CPUs and heavy current draw components like high-end GPUs will require a PSU with a fair bit of oomph to it (call it >=750W).

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks all.

I tried taking out everything and starting, no joy, there wasn't a graphics out on the mobo so I swapped my old card back in, again nothing, I've tested the ssd elsewhere. Tried the memory one such at a time etc. Couldn't think of much else so I ordered the bits I need. Decided not to go with pre built so I've got a Skylake i5 6600, with a Gigabyte Z170 board and 16gb of ddr4 memory arriving this pm. My laptop is currently copying all the stuff I need from the ssd so I can format it ready to go in the new build.

I've created a bootable USB stick with win10 on it and I'll see what happens when I try putting in my old win7 key, at worst I'll phone the help desk.

I've also got a 750w power supply coming, I did an online calculator which suggested a 514w Max use and my old psu was 500w and 5 years old.

Is there anything else?

RB

 

[caLLous]

Sounds like you've got it all under control. Is it a recently downloaded Windows 10 ISO? I imagine that, even if it's one of the earlier builds, it will update after installation and let you use your Win 7 key.

The help desk were really good with me. I'd upgraded to Windows 10 and then changed my motherboard which threw the activation off. I explained that to them and gave them my Windows 7 key and he gave me one I can use for 10 with a clean install.

 

[old.Osy]

I was never a fan of Gigabyte's motherboards. In my 15+ years experience of building systems, Gigabyte was always issue ridden (be it overheating, be it low quality capacitors, etc).

You can't fail with Asus. Other good boards are MSI, with AsRock on the low end (cheaper, but as good).

Intel boards are also very sturdy, but less feature-rich and generally do not OC well or at all.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I downloaded the win 10 last night, thanks Cal, I had upgraded my old win 7 install a couple of months ago. I'm hoping that the help desk will do the same for me if required.

Oh dear Osy. It's too late for me I've already others the gigabyte board. On the plus side my old one was also gigabyte and that had given me no issues for 5 years or so. Fingers crossed I guess.

RB

 

[Rubber Bullets]

So everything has gone quite smoothly, the install from the USB stick was easy once I sorted out an issue with previous partitions blocking me and the new PC runs smoothly. I bought the new Tomb Raider to celebrate and it looks great despite me only having a R9 280 card which gives me an obvious upgrade path.

There is one slight issue though.

I had 2 1TB HDD in my old PC that I used for data and for holding some of my less used programs. When I attached them to the new board they both seem to have issues. On start up both made a clicking sound for about 10-15 seconds. It was a rhythmic double click then a clunk. This happened with each separately, they are both Samsung. The boot was also considerably slower.

I have removed them and put them in an external dock and they appear to work fine, no clicking and all data present. I attached an old HDD to the board and this doesn't click or slow the boot. I have backed up the important stuff from them though.

Do I have an issue with my old drives? They are the same model, bought at the same time, but it seems an odd coincidence that they would bnoth fail at exactly the same time, in the same way. Or is there something that the bios is doing to make them click? But why doesn't it do it with the old drive.

Before I go off and buy a new data disk I thought I'd ask here.

If I do need a new data disk, probably just one of 3TB, what suggestions? I don't want to spend a lot so WD Black is probably out.

Thanks

RB

 

[caLLous]

Avoid Seagate 3 TB disks like the plague. I would go with Western Digital. Depending on your requirements, you might go for one of their Greens (lowest power consumption) for £~80 or Reds (also good power consumption and low spin speed) for closer to £90.

It sounds odd that your existing drives are making the noise when plugged into the motherboard but not in the dock but, as with all clicking and unpleasant noises like that, I'd get the data backed up asafp.

 

[Bodhi]

Are the new 7200rpm Blues available in 3Tb yet? As they look a good blend between price and performance.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Are the new 7200rpm Blues available in 3Tb yet? As they look a good blend between price and performance.

Looking on Amazon at least it looks like not. But I'm less concerned with speed for this drive, I'll probably just go with a 5400 one.

 

[Bodhi]

Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA300)

Heard many good things about Toshiba drives these days, worth checking out?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Does look good, and good price but the delivery PRS it over the cost of the WD blue on Amazon. Is it worth the extra for the jump from 5400rpm to 7200?

 

[caLLous]

Not for a data drive, no.

 

[old.Osy]

Let me reference SPAM - This thread is for random spam!!

It's a wonderful drive - so bloody fast, wasn't expecting it.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks for the idea Osy

 

[Bodhi]

Not for a data drive, no.

5400 rpm drives make the baby Jesus cry.

Yes, even for data. I have one in my current pc and it's chronically slow.

 

[Raven]

5400 is only good if you want to save a little battery life in a laptop. Otherwise, fairly pointless, its not like the price difference is much.