PC wont start...

[Maljonic]

My mum's PC had been working fine without any problems then the other day she phoned me and said when she turns it on there is no picture on the monitor. I said I'd come around and fix it, thinking she'd just unplugged something; but I'm lost, I think it might really be buggered. When you switch on, everything powers up; drives, fans etc including the fan on the graphics card but nothing else happens. All the internal cabling is plugged in properly; no reason why it shouldn't be really 'cause my mum wouldn't go in there. I've tried switching graphics cards; tested the original and it works, tried switching memory; tested the original and it works. No signal goes to the monitor and the system doesn't beep or do anything... I think something on the motherboard might have popped and I'll have to take it into the shop on Monday to be tested; but I thought I'd ask here as I have a whole day to wait, maybe someone knows some other things I could try?

 

[Trem]

Tried resetting the BIOS(CMOS)?

I had somthing similar to this and restting bios worked for me.

 

[Maljonic]

How do I do that?

 

[old.Fweddy]

Take the battery out the motherboard, wait five minutes then stick it in and boot her up.

 

[FatBusinessman]

Originally posted by old.Fweddy
...wait five minutes then stick it in and boot her up.

Note to Maljonic: he's referring to the motherboard here, not your mum.

 

[Trem]

Or there will be a jumper, it will be on 2 of 3 pins, you will need to move it so its still on the middle pin but the other half is on the other pin, erm thats hard to explain. Leave it a min or 2 then move it back to where it was.

 

[xane]

You didn't mention you'd tested the monitor.

In my experience, you can get a blank signal from a dead CPU, if you can change that it may help.

 

[Furr]

*agrees*

had this prob before, was a dead CPU....

 

[smurkin]

Had a siinilar problem (RAM in my case) - could also be the graphics card (although you might expect beeps - although you said you tried swapping gfx cards). Also once I tried a failed o/c once and had the same symptoms...resetting the bio fixed the problem that time.

My 2 penneth...If you can be arsed, reset the bios, unplug everything from the mobo except the graphics card (do check the gfx card is properly seated - remember to remove the ram as well - of course leave the psu plugged in...hehe).

If the monitor doesnt light up in any way and there are no beeps....well, its the mobo or gfx card or cpu.

*edit - come to think of it...if its still under warranty....dont bugger with it, just take it back to the shop as theyll have to fix it anyway*

 

[Maljonic]

It's not still under warranty but they are very helpful in the shop it was from. I did try taking the battery out but not for as long as 5 minutes. It has been tested on two monitors as well, but I never really thought it was that. I think it might be the cpu as nothing happens at all and I would imagine the cpu is pretty much the first port of call in the start-up process. Never had a cpu die as drastically as this before though, it's being running fine for over a year; usually something goes wrong initially if the cpu has a fault.

I'll try leaving the battery out for longer but I'm not sure it's even getting as far as reading the bios...

 

[PR.]

I had a similar problem, it was my Monitor, try another at least then you can rule it out...

 

[kameleon]

Sounds like a dead cpu to me


have you tried disconnecting all ide/ floppy devices?

 

[makgsnake]

i had exact same prob, couldnt fix it.
just got back from the comp shop now and it cost me £20

they said they reinstalled all the drivers, for £20 FFS, i got screwd

 

[Maljonic]

20 quid sounds pretty cheap to me... Can't reinstall any drivers on this one though...

 

[makgsnake]

u can if you get your computer in safe mode and do it from there.

 

[Maljonic]

Originally posted by makgsnake
u can if you get your computer in safe mode and do it from there.

err... no. Take it you haven't read the problem then.

 

[Maljonic]

Just in case anyone is interested or has the same problem in the future: It was the internal 56k modem that was faulty, it had been damaged by an electrical storm we had around here at the time... the same shop had 30 other cases exactly the same. Good thing was my mum's computer was still under waranty for labour, so she only had to pay 13 quid for another modem...

 

[smurkin]

pretty freaky...

 

[StrangelyBrown]

Had a similar thing with my Dad's PC. Turned out that he'd bumped the hoover into it and that had corrupted the BIOS so that there was no selectable first boot device...

Regs,
SB