PC stopped working, now will not post

Jaffacakekilla

Jaffacakekilla

Jaffacakekilla

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5 Feb 2010
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Just checking to make sure I have not missed anything here.

My Dads PC, (a three year old cheap acer) stopped working.

The mouse froze. so he turned it off.

When he turned it on again, he got an error message but could not read read it, as it was faster than he is.

It worked for a a couple of hours, then after leaving it for a while, he came back and the screen was blank.

He turned it off and then back on, and nothing.

I had a look at it today, unplugged every thing and tried again.

With the HD connected, it spins, and the leds come on, but no post.

I have taken the memory out and disconnected everything, but no post.

Its on board graphics, so I was thinking either PSU, Graphics, cpu, or mobo.

Have I missed something?

I assume it should still post as it is.

So first step, test PSU?
 
Do you get any speaker beeps? Does the case even have a speaker attached? If not try connecting one. The BIOS beeps are quite useful.

Try a different PSU though as that's probably one of the easiest things to check.
 
Not posting: I would do a cmos reset for the bios. But there are more symptoms than just bios by the sounds of it. Anyway, cmos reset might just help to get it posting.
 
Unfortunately a non loaded PSU can produce good voltages that dissapear once load is introduced. I had one that showed good voltage but in a machine refused to do anything.
 
Thanks for your replies.

I have now fitted a new mobo Gigabyte G31M-ES2L

She now lives.

My next problem is windows will not start due to the new hardware.

I was hoping to get it to boot in safe mode and install drivers, but no use. I just keep getting the recovery thingy.

So, what options do I have.

As its my dads PC, I assume he has just kept all his photos and document in the windows directories, and he would like to try and keep them.

Is there anyway to do this?

Do I have to re-install?

If so, should I try to slave the hard drive to another PC and retrieve the info from it?
 
When I tried to start in safe mode, it went into a recovery or repair mode, but could not fix the problems.

Is this what you mean, or do you mean boot from a cd with a recovery console on?

Sorry for the lack of knowledge here, but I have never liked Vista and have always stayed clear of it.
 
Boot from the Vista disk and you'll eventually see an option for 'repair your computer'. Select this and there will be an option for 'startup repair'. Worth a shot :)
 
A vista repair involves a set of repair disks that you create when you first setup the OS on your machine, without this, you can pretty much say hello to a reformat/reinstall...


However, get yourself a linux live CD (Ubuntu 10.x should do the trick) and boot to the live cd portion of it without installing. Plug in an external HDD or large Memory Stick and go to the file browser to locate and copy all the files you want to save. Once saved, flatten the drive and reinstall Vista.

Simplez.

If you need to chat about it then send me a pm and I'll try and talk you through it later via skype or w/e when I'm done in work.
 
You can do a fresh install right over the top of an already partitioned hard drive, it just puts your previous Windows install into a folder name 'windows.old' of which all the files are still accessible including videos, photos, etc saved in the document folders.

Just drag all the files out you need into the new install and then delete the 'windows.old' folder. After this run disk defragmentation and all is fresh, fast and new again.
 
Ok, I thought I would give both a try, and double my chances.

Ubuntu is ace, let me see all the drive and copy things onto an external usb drive.

I then put the vista dick in, and it wanted to install vista, but said that there was already a version there and would rename it 'old'.

So, should I install vista again as is, or re-format and clean install?
 
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