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20Aug2006 Filed under: Uncategorized Author: Charles GuthrieFew things are guaranteed in life, with the exception of death, taxes, and computer problems. My main desktop recently broke down. I was walking by it yesterday when I noticed it was in standby mode when I don’t remember setting it to do so. I tried to get it to wake up but no keypresses or button smashing seemed to do the trick. I eventually held down the power button to get it to force off, after which I have not been able to get it to turn back on. Feh!
To go down a quick rundown of it’s symptoms:
- Power is getting to the motherboard, I know becuase the green light on the motherboard is glowing
- When I press the power button nothing happens, not even a fan turning on or anything.
- I see no signs of burnouts or any physical damage.
I haven’t tried to look directly at the processor yet; I figured I’d let a professal do that. I’m phenominal with software, but I suck with hardware. If I could do hardware repairs with a mouse and keyboard I’d be a master at it.
So, now I am faced with some options:
- Buy a whole new computer
- Buy an exact replacement for the motherboard and/or processor
- Buy a modern motherboard and processor combo
I like option three the best, except I am worried that I may have to buy other things along with a new mobo/processor combo, like modern memory and a PCI-Express graphics card (I currently have a Radeon 9800 XT, an AGP card).
I was just about to perhaps buy a new laptop, so buying a new desktop right now would seem excessive. I just do not like the idea that if my laptop were to break down as well I’d have nothing to do my work with. It’s nice to have a back up workstation, even if it isn’t portable.
Perhaps I should just buy a new laptop and use my old laptop as a desktop until I figure out what I’m going to do with the dead desktop. Le sigh… 
Ben
August 24th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I had a simular problem crop up a while ago. In my case it happened around the sametime as a storm, so I blamed it on a power surge that the surge protector didn’t stop (Crappy surge protector). In my case the LED’s on the motherboard lit up, but the machine wouldn’t boot or even run the BIOS. I figured out I could unplugged the powersupply and switched it off and waited about 60 seconds then plug it all back in and turn it on. It worked when I turned it back on after this treatment. I think there was some kind of little surge protector in the powersupply and it switched off mostly when a surge came through. Then I needed to totally restart things to get it all working again.
If that doesn’t work, then the 5 basic components you need to run BIOS are CPU, MoBo, Ram, Video and Power. If you know you have power, then you can do a few simple trouble shooting things to check the other components.
You could have a RAM chip failure. So just test the two ram sticks. Try to boot the machine with just one stick in the 1st bin. Then try with the other stick. The most likely failure is going to be RAM if the machine was running and nothing started to burn. I have had RAM failures just out of the blue while running before, and the computer freezes.
Your dad or a roomate probably has an old computer around with a junky AGP card they know works. I recall seeing Drew’s desk had an old box that wasn’t being used. I bet there is an AGP card in that box. Try to slap that thing in and see if the computer boots through BIOS.
It’s unlikely that a CPU would just die suddenly unless you are trying to overclock with high voltage. Although it’s not definate you can look at your CPU heat sink and if it’s totally clogged with cat hair and dust, then this [:b:]may[/:b:] be the problem (still unlikely). If the CPU heatsink is clean, then there would be no reason to overheat and kill the CPU. You can only realy “test” the CPU by plugging it into another comuter with the same type of socket and booting the machine. Perhaps your dad or a roomate has a computer with the same socket.
A dead MoBo is the worst case scenario for you. It’s hardest to test and it may be impossible to buy the same MoBo again. That would be the easiest and cheapest fix to just buy the same MoBo and plug it in. Buying a newer MoBo will carry additional costs. You’ll probably need a new CPU and a new graphics card and new modern memory.
In the world of buying a new computer, waiting 6 months is a great idea right now. It’s always a good idea to wait 6 months when buying hardware, but right now it is especially good to wait. This is all realy due to Vista which will probably be released some time in the 1st quarter of next year (around January). Vista has the next generation of Direct X (DX 10 or DX11?) and no current graphics cards support the newest Direct X (no games use it either). However after Vista is released the GPU companies will have cards that support the new Direct X and there will be new applications developed that require it. Also in the comming months Intel will be releasing their newest generation of CPU. This is much better than previous generations of CPU’s from intel over the last few years. It is more energy efficient, it is totally redesigned, it runs faster (both in clock speed and in actual processing power) than any AMD processor currently avaiable and these new Intel processors are going to have “entry level models” that are relatively inexpensive. So about the same time that Vista is released there will be a whole set of new hardware being released that will set you up with the new hardware technologies that will be a standard for the following several years. I’d realy try to get a cheap fix for this computer and hold out till after Vista is released.
Ben
August 24th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
I was just re-reading your message and if the fan’s don’t turn, it’s probably a power supply problem.
Charles
August 24th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I actually did something I am not that proud of. I took my machine to Computer Rennesaince for them to do a full check on what works and what doesn’t. Turns out the power supply is indeed dead, but so is somthing else, possibly the motherboard and more.
Not sure what happened, but it seems there was either some sort of short circuit or a major power surge. I have a surge protector, but I guess it wasn’t enough. It’s even stranger that none of my housemates’ computers were harmed at all.
Any rate, I paid to have them take a look at it which they are going to get to on Friday. I guess I could of done that myself but they can do motherboard repairs and the like, which might save me money, but my motherboard, the A7N8X-E is available on eBay for around $100… so it might be cheaper for me to just go buy a new one of those off someone but at least this way I can get a professional opinion about what is fracked and what is not.
Charles
September 4th, 2006 at 12:37 am
Oh yeah, I forgot to post back about this. Computer Rennesaince called me back to let me know my computer was fixed a while back. It turned out that the person who originally diagnosed my computer had no clue what he was doing. The motherboard was completely fine; it was in actuality just a bad power supply.
If they had originally told me it was just a bad power supply I would have just bought one and installed it myself. I only paid to have them take a look at the motherboard because they claimed to be experts, which they obviously are not.
They put a new power supply in the machine and billed me for the labor without even asking me if I wanted them to. Feh! >:(