Computer people help! I think my computer is dead..

[wab]

I recently moved into my new appartment and I can't get my computer to work ever since. When I turn it on the lights on my cd/floppy/zip drives light up, the harddisk makes a few noises and the fans start working. But that's it, the screen stays black the harddisk makes no more sound.
My computer is a pentiumIII-500 with 192MB ram. I think my main board is a Chaintech 6VTA2. I have checked all cards, memory and cables. They're all connected properly.

What could be the problem? Please tell me not all is lost? thanks

 

[LTUCCI1924]

HI: Sorry to hear about your puter. Maby its time to get a DELL

 

[grinch]

if you're felling industrious, you can open up the case and reseat all of the components. this mean taking out and putting back in all the pci cards, your video card, and your ram. something might've come lose when you were moving it.

try that, and then we start in with the "buy a new motherboard" thing..

 

[bootman]

Is this a computer you put together yourself?
Are you comfortable with opening up the PC and do some troubleshooting?
If so then you can try a few things.

Remove all cards except the video card.
(might be a good idea to remove the video card and reseat it.)
Also reseat the memory.

Does the PC make any beeping noises on startup?
the beeps could help diagnose the problem but you would have to see if there is any mention of the beep meanings in the chaintech manual.

Do you have a DOS boot disk?
If you can get past posting after reseating the cards and memory you can try to boot off a floppy disk. If this works then reconnect the hard drive and see if you can boot off that. The next step would be to reinstall the cards one at a time and make sure you can boot after each card install.

 

[Audio Redneck]

Follow bootman's instructions first. If the "all cards but the video card" part doesn't give you anything on the screen (even an error message), unplug the hard drive from the motherboard and try again.

If still nothing you're looking at the power supply or the motherboard(or something on it.)

Good luck.

 

[jpelg]

You said that you heard everything else except the hard drive startup pretty much normally?

It is not uncommon for a hard drive's read/write heads to get stuck while being transported. Usually this can be remedied by a firm, but gently tapping on the side of the drive enclosure. The best way to do this is to pull out the drive (unscrew it from the bay slot), and give it a nice, easy whack in the palm of your hand. That could be enough to jar things loose and have it working again.

 

[Born2bwire]

I find that if nothing happens, not even anything coming up on the screen, then it can be the Graphics card, power supply, RAM, or mobo or maybe CPU. If everything's lighting up then I would suspect that your PS is fine. I would swap out the RAM, Graphix card one at a time and try it then. See what components you can swap out to narrow down the culprit. Even if your harddrive was faulty, this wouldn't be noticed by the computer until the BIOS checked for drives and a OS.

 

[wab]

Thanks for the advice everybody! I'll try the strategy's mentioned here this afternoon.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Since your computer won't even turn on. the problem is a little mroe deeply seated than something simple. Try some of these ideas:

Check that the power inputs to the MB are all still well seated.
Make sure you didn't bump the input voltage switch over to 220.
Make sure that the CPU is also seated well and in place.

If all this, and the great idea everyone else here suggested don't work, find a computer store in your area and see if they'll take a look at it and help you out. See if they can find the fault quickly and repiar/replace things cheaply.

Here's to hoping it's just a simple connection loose!!!

 

[ClearYourMind]

Something like this happened at my school. I happen to have a DemoLinux Cd. It's Linux that runs entirely off the cd drive. The professor was trying to see what was wrong with it, and when I put the cd in, the computer started up and I was able to get online and everything. When I took the cd out, the computer was messed up still. We found out that the hard drive was messed up.

If you can load from the floppy or cd rom, then it's prob ur hard drive. I'm no pc tech by any means, and it's hard to trouble shoot a pc without actually being there.

Also once I put in a faulty ram chip in my pc, and it made weird beeping sounds. Turned out my ram was f$#%@! up.

 

[CaptBubba]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpelg Usually this can be remedied by a firm, but gently tapping on the side of the drive enclosure.

Percussive matinence. It may not help, but it will make you feel better.

Its amazing the number of things that can be fixed by whacking them.

 

[ai0tron]

Yeah, I had an old harddrive sitting on my desk for like 2 weeks until one day I bumped it and it fell about 3 feet onto the metal base of a lamp stand. I thought for sure that the poor thing was shot, but no, it still functions. In fact I was able to rescue all the data off of it without any problems. Very strange considering that it had previously been on the virge of self destructing. Anyhow, despite the fact that it has apparenly been repaired and restored by the awesome force that is gravity I still don't really trust the thing. Personally I say that if your harddrive is giving you problems, rescue what you can, then get a new one.

 

[wallijonn]

see if the cpu came out or the heat sink came off. also check to make sure all the cables are secure and firmly inserted. make sure all the boards are firmly installed in their slots. make sure the keyboard & mouse are installed in their correct sockets. don't add usb devices until you know the pc works.