major breakdown...

[Ormorof]

ok... so the other day my PC had a major breakdown, at first i thought it was just overheating but the problem (or the main problem) seems to have changed...

it started off with my PC starting to make very loud clicking noises and my keyboard dying, i shut it down slightly worried (the clicking noises killed the keyboard and mouse but not sound or monitor), at first i thought it had overheated so left it to cool off (scolded my hand when i touched the bits inside), when it had finally cooled off it started making beeping sounds, fast repetitive ones (if it makes any difference), so i started trial and erroring by removing the sticks of ram one by one to see if it was one of them causing a problem, after removing all the sticks and replacing them the beeping stops, however now i just got a black screen where the xp loading screen usually comes up, after fiddling with the hard drives (unplugged one, not the master drive) i now am stuck, i seem to be going backwards rather than forwards here... i now dont get any response from the monitor that the PC is infact connected, and from the sounds the PC makes it doesnt sound like the hard drive is booting up at all (ie the fans are all running but none of the usual boot up noises)

the specs of the PC are:
3.0 ghz P4
1024mb DDR RAM
Radeon 9800 128mb pro
1x 80GB western digital HD (main, XP installed here)
1x 120GB western digital HD (secondary)

i have no idea what is going on, will be googling while waiting for response though, yay

 

[Bob007]

scolded my hand when i touched the bits inside

What "bits" were hot ?

my advice for now, disconect all driver, both power and ide/sata cables unplugged, just have mainboard, graphics card, cpu&fan and 1 stick of ram. Switch pc and see if it POSTs.

Can you enter the bios ?

try another stick of ram, if it posts then its prob a cable/drive or psu. Can find out which by swapping stuff around and trial and error.

If it don't post it leaves you with 1 of 4, cpu fried. Mainboard dead, graphics card dead or ram dead. If you can get a lend of spares to swap these out, All the better, If not, take it to a shop and get parts tested.

Afriad for self diagnostic its a case of trial and error till you find the problem/fault.

Good luck

 

[Ormorof]

hehe well i just got it working, i took everything out, put everything back in again and now everything seems to be running...

both heatsink and even the fan on the chip were burning hot, so might be investing in something slightly better than the bog standard i was provided with (it was originally 512mb RAM, radeon 9200 and the single HD, but is now also running soundcard, radeon 9800 and an extra HD so guess it might whack the temp up when im playing Quake 4 )

thanks anyway

 

[smurkin]

Faulty keyboard connection?...sounds like a cricket chirping (from the mobo) then gives lots of beeps and wont boot. Anyway, glad you fixed it