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My current desktop is dying/dead. It was given to me by my bestest friend and had worked flawlessly for her since she built it a couple years ago. The CPU fan broke in transit, but I replaced it with an identical one, carefully removing the old and reapplying a new layer of thermal paste as well. That is the only hardware change I made to the system, aside from putting in a new harddrive and installing Windows XP Pro when I got it.
It worked well for me for about 6 months and then it started locking up and then failing to Post although all of the fans, and motherboard lights would turn on. I didn't find any loose connections when I checked inside the case. I went about re-seating everything just to be sure. Video card, dvd, ram, heatsink, (didn't take the cpu out, but those tend not to jump out on their own). The only thing that appeared make a difference in the operation of the computer was the RAM.
It had 2 2-gb sticks of ram when I got it, and if I took one of them out and seated the remaining one in the 2nd channel A slot it would work, sorta. (This wasn't based on any research, I was just trying anything at this point)
If I shutdown the PC I'd have to remove the ram, reboot it a couple times and then reseat it and pray it worked. I did this a few times before I realized that if I just put the computer into Standby mode I could avoid having to reseat it.
In the past two weeks it started to lockup again. It didn't occur during any particular activity, using a browser, just using the mouse on the desktop, during games, whenever. Tonight it locked up, and when I rebooted the system nothing. No musical chairs with the RAM is working, all the connections are good, alot of sound and fury, no joy.
I write this from the least [H] computer I've ever owned, an HP Netbook. Not really that fun to use, even with my small hands. I plan to do some research at work but what I'm hoping for is that someone will have encountered this sort of thing before and will relay some help or possibly point me to a good website that has a very clear step by step guide on troubleshooting a system.
Thanks in advance.
It worked well for me for about 6 months and then it started locking up and then failing to Post although all of the fans, and motherboard lights would turn on. I didn't find any loose connections when I checked inside the case. I went about re-seating everything just to be sure. Video card, dvd, ram, heatsink, (didn't take the cpu out, but those tend not to jump out on their own). The only thing that appeared make a difference in the operation of the computer was the RAM.
It had 2 2-gb sticks of ram when I got it, and if I took one of them out and seated the remaining one in the 2nd channel A slot it would work, sorta. (This wasn't based on any research, I was just trying anything at this point)
If I shutdown the PC I'd have to remove the ram, reboot it a couple times and then reseat it and pray it worked. I did this a few times before I realized that if I just put the computer into Standby mode I could avoid having to reseat it.
In the past two weeks it started to lockup again. It didn't occur during any particular activity, using a browser, just using the mouse on the desktop, during games, whenever. Tonight it locked up, and when I rebooted the system nothing. No musical chairs with the RAM is working, all the connections are good, alot of sound and fury, no joy.
I write this from the least [H] computer I've ever owned, an HP Netbook. Not really that fun to use, even with my small hands. I plan to do some research at work but what I'm hoping for is that someone will have encountered this sort of thing before and will relay some help or possibly point me to a good website that has a very clear step by step guide on troubleshooting a system.
Thanks in advance.
