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Computer Not Posting Anymore Help Pls.

KD_

n00b
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Messages
12
So after close to 2 years my old PC just decided to stop working. The Specs are iirc 1ghz Thunderbird, Iwill mb no clue what model, 768mb of PC133 ram, 30gb HD, GF3 Ti500 (yeah its a crappy system :) ).

So anyways I was playing a little TFC over at my friends place since I leave it there since I bought a new PC. After the round was over I went to restart but hit Shutdown instead. Ever since then it wont post at all. All that will happen when the power is hit, is the CPU Fan and Vid Card fans will run then after a little while a clicking sound will start. Any help on what you think coulda died, the cpu? mb? psu? or whatever else would be greatly helpful. It was the first comp I ever built and would like it running again for its memories :). Thanks in advance for whatever help I get.
 
Yeah, I'm gonna say bad hard drive as well... first off, take it out and stick it in the freezer for a couple hours, then quickly reconnect it and see if that helps you to get anything off of it.

Second, go in and check all your connections, and look at some stuff around the mobo/PSU/chip. Anything burnt?

Other than that, I can't think of anything else...
 
I'll preface this by saying that I'm relatively new to this stuff. But wouldn't the machine still POST before it noticed that the HD was bad?
 
technically yes, the bios should still be available, but what should happen doesnt always work out :)
 
Ill check out the harddrive in a few hours, since im stuck at work and so is my friend where the comp is being stored. Reason i was thinking it was the MB CPU or PSU was b/c I thought that it would at least post if the HD was messed.

JSClark - Are you serious about sticking it in the freezer for a couple hours?

If it is the HD i dont really care about getting anything off it since all it has on is games which are easy to install. Just wanna figure out what I need to replace to get this thing working again.
 
Well checked all the cables and everything and dont hear any clicks anymore but when i hit the power the monitor comes on for a minute then shuts right off. So basically thinking its a dead video card? or maybe fried agp slot? anyways anymore help would be grateful :)
 
Howdy, thought I would lob a few rocks into the fray.

The most important thing to check is that you have a speaker plugged into the speaker header on the motherboard. Without that, it is much harder to trouble shoot these kind of problems.

First, if it won't post, it's probably not the hard drive. Easily checked by unplugging both the power and the data cables from the drive and seeing if it will post.

Memory can be verified by pulling all ram from the system. On power up it should give some kind of beep.

The video card can be checked the same way. Take the vid card out and power on the system. It should give some kind of beep.

After that, I would suspect a power supply. Just had 1 go belly up on me a couple of weeks ago. If you have access and know how to use 1, a volt meter will tell you right away if the power supply is bad. You can check 5v and +12v on the hard drive power connector. 3.3 volts are on the orange connector going to the mother board. If you have another available, it's pretty quick to just swap in a known good 1 and power it up.

Next, check the CPU. No way to test it other than to swap it into a working board, or plugging a good CPU into your board.

If all esle fails, your motherboard may have bitten the dust.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Don
 
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