PC just stopped

pompeyrich

My pc froze up, I pressed the reset button and nothing, the power on light lights up for a couple of seconds and the fan is running, so it is getting power. I suspect the hard drive has "died" but how can I confirm this, the PC has Windows XP media edition pro installed, is there any way to reinstall this on a new hard drive, I dont have the original Win XP disc as it came pre-installed. Hope you can help, I'm at work all night so can check answer here, thanks Rich

skint999

what type of pc is it? and does it have a recovery function? when you power on the machine how far does it get? does it display any error messages? can you run command prompt? if so run chkdsk this creates and displays a status report for a hard disk and can correct errors on the disk.

pompeyrich

That was quick, doesn't seem to run at all, apart from the breif flash on the power button, and the fan running, if I insert the recovery disc, the green led on the dvd drive flashes for 10 secs, then nothing. I get nothing on the screen at all also as there doesn't appear to be any noise from the hard drive, I have had the side cover off the pc, do hard drives just die or are there warning signs first? Many thanks Rich

albertross_2

If the HD died, you will still get something on screen

skint999

how old is it? and what make? (hard drive) are you able to get into the bios settings to change the boot priority to run the recovery disc? i.e. i was able to quickly press ctr+alt+del to get into the bios settings before screen flashed before my eyes.

dont think you could physically check a hard drive to determin any problems, unless it was black and smelled of toast lol

pompeyrich

It's a maxtor hd, not sure of the model etc. about 2-3 years old. Dont even get a flicker on the screen but if I turn the monitor off and on it says no signal, so the monitor is ok. Will have another look when I get home just double check all the connections are still good. Thanks for the advice so far maybe back tomorrow, hope not but probably will be !!

totalsolutions

More overheating fault. There are several fans in a PC, not just the one you mentioned. Check the video card is ok, check the fan and then remove the small retaining screw and remove card, (there may also be a small clip near the end of the socket), with a air duster blow out any dust and refit. Might work. More info required.

PZH

totalsolutions wrote: »

More overheating fault. There are several fans in a PC, not just the one you mentioned. Check the video card is ok....

Additionally, check that the fan on the CPU is running - this would cause an almost immediate failure.

I doubt if your hard drive has died because, even if it had, the PC would run the POST ( Power On Startup Test ) and report the failure ( i.e. you would have a display on screen )

Does the PC 'Beep' at all when you press the power button ?

tom9980

Doubt its the Hard drive and you have power so psu is probably OK. You need to open the side of the case and turn the pc on (dont touch anything just observe) and see which fans are working, its possible the cpu fan isnt working and the motherboard is shutting the PC down to prevent damage.

Other problems may be caused by the graphics card, memory or motherboard and unless you have replacement parts to do some tests its not going to be easy to figure out whats wrong. About the only thing you can do is remove the graphics card and memory and reseat them again, check the fans are operational and clean any dust out, after that its a game of part swapping.

pompeyrich

Thanks for all your replies, Update, I removed the hd last night, this morning I turned the pc on minus the hd and it booted up to a "looking for boot" kind of message. Powered down refitted hd, rebooted and started up ok, got online etc. after maybe 10 mins pc froze again and back to square 1. There is a fan on the mother board, and 1 in the power supply unit, these are the only 2 I can see. loads of dust everywhere so cleaned that up, probably have to wait til Monday for more ivestigations, thanks for all you help so far, Rich

Browntoa

suspect the dirt was the cause