how can i tell what part of my pc is failing ?

TALON1973

TALON1973

TALON1973

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llanelli , south wales
hi all,

hoping someone can help me out here .

my pc is struggling to boot up a lot atm and can take me many goes pressing my case button for any sign of life . sometimes i get a blu screen and it goes through a memory dump , others it will ask to do a repair but it cant fix it.

ive got 35 gb left on a 500 hard-drive left . pc runs sluggish ... but where do i start to fix the problem ? is it my hard-drive failing ? or could it be mobo ?

any help would be appreciated

thanks
 
id format the hardrive first and see how it performs then
if u have got another hdd pop that in and format it, so u dont lose the info off ure other one, if u are using win 7 shouldnt take long, and u dont have to reactivate it to diagnose if the operating system was messed up, 1st port of call to me, instead of diagnosing all the components
obviously if this doesnt work, then you are looking at the ram, the board, the probably not the hdd if u tried another one and the problem remained
or, u could try and do a system restore with u getting bsod!
 
i do have an external 500gb hard-drive .. no internal one to fit in atm... need a bigger drive anyway so its just a matter of do i have time on my hands ??

hmmm thinkikng about it i might have an old 320 harddrive around in my parents house from an old pc lying in a drawer ...but cant get hold of it atm

if i format it i supposed i can afford to lose my steam stuff and do a mass download again .. other stuff i'll have to post over .but that would be a temp fix
 
If the rig is struggling to power on as you say it takes several attempts at pressing the on button to get it to start. I would look at the PSU first as it's easier to test by swapping it out for a known working one. If you have a cheap generic PSU then I would stop using the machine until you can try a replacement. When cheap PSUs give up the ghost they have a nasty habit of taking other components with them......grief you don't need.

If the PSU is ok my next gut instinct is that the mobo could be faulty. Faulty mobos can cause all kinds of weird problems. I would suggest you download ultimate boot cd or hirens boot disk. It is full of diagnostic tools, you can test the RAM and run prime95 to test the stability of the system. If the rig is failing these tests it helps us narrow down the problem
 
honosuseri said:
If the rig is struggling to power on as you say it takes several attempts at pressing the on button to get it to start. I would look at the PSU first as it's easier to test by swapping it out for a known working one. If you have a cheap generic PSU then I would stop using the machine until you can try a replacement. When cheap PSUs give up the ghost they have a nasty habit of taking other components with them......grief you don't need.

If the PSU is ok my next gut instinct is that the mobo could be faulty. Faulty mobos can cause all kinds of weird problems. I would suggest you download ultimate boot cd or hirens boot disk. It is full of diagnostic tools, you can test the RAM and run prime95 to test the stability of the system. If the rig is failing these tests it helps us narrow down the problem
Click to expand...

thanks for the suggestions .. teh psu was a well known brand back in the day - tagan ... without lookign its 530 or 520w .

EDIT ** found the model from an old thread i posted in 2006 :D :- Tagan TG530-U15 530W

as nuts as this sounds .. my sony bd-rom drive has no write capability what-so-ever so cant make anything to boot from :(
 
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I wouldn't say it's PSU related just yet, the PSU should spin up as soon as the motherboard sends a signal to do so...
 
ok bit of an update ..

tried using my windows 7 disc from boot to do repairs .......keeps saying ive got a usb device connected ( well i do have mouse and keyboard ) so stops after 5 seconds .

also tried the memory diagnostic tool .it found nothing

sighs
 
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