Curse

jasonrunion · Aug 07, 2005, 08:51 PM // 20:51

I was playin guild wars on my custom machine i have been playin it fine since the day it first came out, my pc is more then able to handle it, anyway i was playin and the screen had these vertical white lines on it then it kept restarting until finally it didnt even turn on it made funny noises and stuff. So now my comp it useless it doesnt even turn on at all this is a problem because school is startin 2morrow plz help me!!

System Specs

P4 3.0 GIGAHERTZ
RADEON X700 256
1GIG OF RAM
ABIT MOTHERBOARD
80GIG HDD

Loviatar · Aug 07, 2005, 08:57 PM // 20:57

noises would indicate a physical problem

think of things like your hard drive platters being scraped clean or simply grinding to a halt

hopefully you have a spare hd around to try out and your data is saved on cd/dvd because with noise i think your drive is dead

a dead video card would not stop the pc from running it would just not show anything

jasonrunion · Aug 07, 2005, 09:00 PM // 21:00

thanks for reponding but why wouldnt it even turn on ay all like the lights wont come on the fans nothing it couldnt be the cpu because it would still turn on, could the hardrive really be doing this or could it be the power box?

Krank · Aug 07, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

sounds like a powersupply problem
Looks like you need a new one

How old is your computer? maybe your CMOS battery is dead

Loviatar · Aug 07, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasonrunion

thanks for reponding but why wouldnt it even turn on ay all like the lights wont come on the fans nothing it couldnt be the cpu because it would still turn on, could the hardrive really be doing this or could it be the power box?

the system (operating system) is what actually sends the signal to start up the pc (bios check to make sure things are working) then a signal is sent to the power supply is switched on (POST power on self test)

if the hd died then it stops before sending more juice to the pc to prevent any more damage

just a guess

EDIT

a power supply fan could also make that noise but a cmos battery just stops working without the fuss

also if a power supply fan goes and things get hot there is usually that hot power supply smell before it goes

jasonrunion · Aug 07, 2005, 09:11 PM // 21:11

ok thanks alot for all ur help, im just glad its not the cpu those aint cheap, ill check the harddrive, its a really fast harddrive so that could be why thanks again

Rayea · Aug 08, 2005, 09:16 AM // 09:16

you can check if its the drive by taking the power and ide cable from the hard drive, then booting up.
you should get your start up screen as normal, (the black one with your chip speed ect) and it will just tell you theres no data, please insert boot disk or some such.
that at least, will tell you your hard drive was doing something that was causing you machine not to start at all.

if that dosent happen, then it is much more likely that your power suply has gone down.
if thats the case, make sure the next one you buy is a heavy (i mean when you pick it up in its box, usually, the weight of the PSU is a good indicator that although it is expensive, if its not lightweight, its better) try to get at least a 400, though with a 256 meg card, 500 or even 600 might be worth it. and make sure it has that approved thing. i cant remember what its called, but its some industry standard thing with a G in it, and it means the PSU is good. thermaltake purepower is not bad, i have a 410 in mine since i bought a Ti card about 2 years ago.

Myria · Aug 08, 2005, 01:14 PM // 13:14

1) By 'making funny noises' do you mean odd beeping from the speaker? If so, that could be the BIOS trying to tell you what's wrong. Google 'BIOS beep codes' for links to lists of what the beep codes mean.

2) Has it been very humid where you are? Oddly enough, I've seen a couple of systems that simply refused to even start for a few very humid summer days, but would otherwise run just fine. A little condensation on the wrong trace can be a Very Bad Thing (tm), but doesn't generally lead to permanent damage.

Beyond that, it's unlikely it's the CMOS bat (most BIOSes would just ask you to run setup or would load defaults, that and your specs indicate a fairly recent system) or an HD failure alone (most HD failures would still allow the system to at least turn on). Most likely culprit would be the vid card, generally because its cooling fan died, but there are any number of other options -- anything from the PSU going south to the vid card just needing to be reseated. As someone else suggested, first try disconnecting everything possible from the system (disconnect drives, remove audio, LAN, and other cards, blah-blah-blah), reseat the vid card, then see if the system will boot. If so, then reconnect things one by one until you find out which one is causing the system to fail. If not, you can try swapping out the vid card and swapping out (and/or rotating) any mem sticks.

Myria

Boubou · Aug 08, 2005, 02:06 PM // 14:06

If the harddrive fails, the boot process will stop after the IDE detection, it will give a message like Harddrive not found.

The power button isn't software, the operating system does nothing on that. The proof, when you buy a custom computer and you assemble it yourself, there is no operating system, and it still boot. The power button is an hardware switch.

If the light won't lit, I would really suggest power supply problems. Too much dust, etc. My suggestion, check the power supply, not the hard drive. Easiest thing to test, smell the back of the fan of the power supply, it may smell burned if it is dead.

Vorkronor · Aug 08, 2005, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Also some current MBs have a "power" led, that is lit when the MB is connected to a working PSU, that's plugged into power even if the computer is switched off (my ASUS A7N8X has this and it helped me to quickly diagnose what was wrong the last time). Look into the manual if your MB has such feature or post the MB model so we can look it up for you (usually all manuals can be found online).

If nothing moves (even if the CPU is dead, the fans should start rotating) when you press the power button then I would say, that the PSU is dead (99%). Sometimes you can really smell it if it is burned. High humidity (spilled coffee inside the case) can prevent the computer from starting up.

aeroclown · Aug 10, 2005, 12:08 AM // 00:08

This is more or less a Power Supply issue. I have actually seen this problem before. Driver failures are only indicated in the Post Screens after all test and Detections are performed.

In this case the Power supply is probably burnt out or shorting out. In fact I can almost garuntee that it is the psu without a doubt. I have seen and experienced first hand the exact described problem and end result.

Almost any other problem will result in a message During Diagnostics or a warning beep with regards to hardware problems that are show stoppers. Most often deadCmos betteries will either fail to keep time are cause a memory mismatch on boot halting the system in POST. An underpowerd psu will cause the machine to power on but not actually boot or POST the same is also true in most cases with a dead CPU. However the problem described and the symptoms described are caused by a burnt psu.

As Far as Humidity goes, It would honestly HAVE to be an EXTREME as I live in south Louisiana and There is never time that humidity has been a factor in the use of a computer in any case what so ever. Most often cases that might be related to humidity would also be related to extreme temprature change I.E Cold outside, Hot inside, where the unit actually sweats and condenses water on the hardware.

jasonrunion · Aug 10, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

ty you so much for the help i wentr out and bought a new psu and it fixed everything the leds are back on and its workin great, thanks agian for the help.