help with broken pc

[xdeity]

jst been asked to take a look at a computer for a nursery.

Basically, the pc will power up, and thew h/d will sound like its starting but then all sound will stop and it just sits there with fans spinning, no sounds from h/d or anything on screen.

checked everything is seated properly.

its a slot celeron, with 1 stick of unmarked ram, but can't evcen get into bios to say how much ram there is.

any ideas would be appreciated.

p.s. already tried clearing the cmos

[Chris IOW]

Tried different stick of memory?

[Mr Snatcher]

so you checked to see if the processor is seated correctly? Maybe have a dead cpu? Also bring another stick of ram and try that...Any beeps?

[MasterMind]

Whats the mainboard make? On-board VGA or add-on one? Have you checked the CMOS Battery?

[xdeity]

changed cmos battery, no beeps, tried new ram, s3 gfx card, but also tried an old 3dfx one. think its a gigabyte board but not sure

[Nuttapper]

I had the same problems on an xp2100, it was the mobo and CPU that were goosed, I changed the mobo, that fixed the Hdrives (well they would spin up) but nothing on the screen, I changed the CPU and could see the BIOS again.. I still had to repair windows though due to the hardware changes, dunno what caused it, it wern't my Pc

[xdeity]

right, put a dif m/board in, dif cpu and dif memory, had it working and installed win 98 (yes yes i know). but now it only works sometimes and sometimes it goes back to doing what it did before. arrrrrg

[Nuttapper]

ok so, next is the PSU, sometimes this is how it goes M8 unfortunatley, you may have a few duff components, it's eliminating them that takes time, unless you just unit change stuff.

[xdeity]

ok, just figured something out. completely changed most of the components. now, when i first start up after replacing the video card it starts up ok, but once shut down the pc won't start again. so i replace the agp card with a pci one, and it works, until i shut it down, then i have to replace it with the agp one as it won't restart, and the same happens again????????

never had this prob before, can't think what could possibly cause this.

as i'm doing this for free for this nursery and i am completely broke i have tried all of my spare components and m/boards, but the same prob keeps re occuring

[PhilEnfield]

Did you change the PSU ?

[xdeity]

no, do you really think it could be that, i do not have a spare psu and no money to buy one either. i hope its not that as its the only thing i have not got.

how could it be the psu if the pc is being powered?

[PhilEnfield]

Well ... if you've tried diff Graphics Card, Diff Mobo/CPU and diff RAM & the CMOS battery is new, you have narrowed it down to either PSU or HDD .... cant be much else.

[MasterMind]

Sounds right Phil. One more (uh..) advice. Try power on only with the basic components. PSU, Mainboard, Processor, RAM, VGA and Keyboard. Disconnect or remove all other stuff.

[xdeity]

tried again and put the original cpu/mainboard back in, reseated the cpu, changed the memory and h/drives. still no luck.

so i put in all the other stuff that had just been in, in exactly the same configuration, and guess what, it works, with no problems. it was doing my nut, but now its ok, except for me being down several usefull spare parts, but well, it was for a kiddies nursery, so did it for charity, free in other words. god i hate working for free. took about 8 hours of work for that repair.

[handyguy]

"no, do you really think it could be that, i do not have a spare psu"

Yep, that's it. Happened to me around three times, each time a new PS did the trick.