Computer won't boot

b3mor

b3mor

b3mor

Associate
Joined
4 Aug 2007
Posts
269
The family PC is refusing to boot.

It is a purple shirt special, about 18 months old, Compaq SR1639

Bit of background information:

It has been running fine, I keep an eye on temperatures with RMClock etc, no new software has been installed.

When you hit the power button all the fans spin up. Usually when it starts the CPU fan runs at max for a couple of seconds then slows down after POST and it boots. Now the CPU fan runs at max and doesn't slow down. It does not get as far as beginning to load into Windows. I don't think it completes POST.

There are no beeps, I've looked over it (as an enthusiastic novice, but I don't want to start taking it apart!) and cannot see anything that looks fried nor are there any burning smells. It just sits there all fans running.

My first thoughts were fried mobo, CPU overheated, PSU. Could it be the memory? It has 2 x 512 DDR. My knowledge is, shall we say, limited. :o

Any help would be great! :)
 
Okay I just tried that and it didn't work. It does the same thing, the fans just go to max and nothing else.

I have tried taking each of the sticks of ram out one at a time, and swapping them around, and that didn't do anything either.

It first did it yesterday after having gone into 'standby' mode having been left alone for a while. When I went to wake it up, nothing (well, except the noise of the fans). Initially I thought it was overheating so I cleared the dust out and kept trying to restart it. It DID start once, with no problems, and got to Windows as if nothing had happened. It went back into 'standby' and has refused to boot since. This makes me think there might be nothing seriously wrong other than a dodgy connection or something (or am I clutching at straws? :p ). Is the small battery on the mobo of any great importance or just stores time etc information that isn't that important.

Thanks for the help. :)
 
Ah well I'll take it down the shop tomorrow and let them have a look.

The thing that is bugging me is the fact it did boot once, if something had died or burnt out I wouldn't have expected it to boot that one time, although even if it is a suspect connection somewhere that probably isn't the easiest thing to find!

I hope the stuff on my USB stick has survived, it was plugged in when it died and I haven't had chance to check the contents yet.

Thanks for your help. :cool:
 
It was the graphics card. Now replaced with a modest 3D Fuzion 7600GS that will hopefully keep things ticking over for 12 months until it is time for Vista. :p

I guess I should have tried removing the card but maybe the same thing would have happened? All part of learning I guess...

The new card has a fan on it but is very close to a network card in the adjacent PCI slot, can I just move this to one of the other slots to improve airflow without it stopping working? Apologies for the newb question!
 
No there was no signal getting to the monitor at all. I couldn't see the POST sequence because there was no signal, and I don't think it would POST anyway (because the graphics card was borked), and thus not boot into Windows.

I think the HS on the graphics card came lose, it overheated, and stopped working. I haven't tried using the old card again, but it may still work if I refitted the HS properly, afterall it did boot once.

And yes, you are right, it is a modem. I'll shift it out the way or even take it out completely as it isn't used. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom