Help with a dead desktop

zendog

zendog

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Steve
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I want to try and get it working again as a backup. I'm well rusty on fiddling inside the box but know what the various bits do.

It crashed thee times in an evening and then died.

Now after hitting the power switch it flashes the two DVD drives and then the hard drive light comes on for a couple of seconds followed by now't.

I'm thinking the hard drive has gone but even so shouldn't the Bios bleep an error code?

I have the full spec somewhere if needed but it's a four year old entry level gaming intel machine running windows 8.1.

I want to DIY - good practice and nothing much to lose.

Cheers
Steve
 
Have you opened it up and checked all leads inside are connected properly?
Even with a crashed hard-drive, it should at least get you up a screen to say "System Disk not found"

Try accessing the BIOS, that should get you in.

Might be F12, the little "delete" button next to the "end" button and below the "insert" button, could even be the ESCape button - depending on the model of PC.

Do you have a spare hard-drive you could do a swap with?
Could be a graphics card issue if no display at all, but I've seen (its been a while since I had a total failure like you've described) a PC still boot up, even with a pooped Graphics Card.

Could also be just fecked. In order of what I would do:

Try getting into BIOS. Then under the hardware you should be able to see if anything is wrong that will give you a clue to whats gone to hardware-heaven.
Open it up. Check all wiring (make sure the mains is not plugged in and the power switch on the back of your PC is off). Try powering it up again.
Try swapping the hard drive, then power it up

If the main board has gone, you could always just rape the box and get whatever parts are useful. Memory might be useful if you can get a board that supports that type. The graphics card and DVD drives.
If you intend to re-build, you might have to ring up microsoft and give them your Win 8.1 key to get a refresh as you will be changing components, but it'll least save you £80 on a new windows license.

Thats about all I can offer without seeing the machine - hope something is useful for you.
 
As Carth says BIOS should run. Sometimes the little battery dies(if it has one)& it forgets bios settings. If bios doesn't start normally there is a beep or flash code to say why.
I had it many years ago when ram became displaced.
 
I agree with JImwah and I would check the PSU first. PSU's have a number of different connectors. Some go the hard drives etc and one to the motherboard. It is not unknown for the power to fail to the motherboard but work to the hard drives. If my memory serves me there are both 5V and 12V supplies coming from the PSU.

Most motherboards have a small led light on them which shows that that part of the PSU is functioning. If the light is not on then it suggests you are not getting power to the motherboard from the PSU.
 
It's working again!

The last thing I tried was wiggling all the PSU connectoors so I'm guessing something had worked loose.

Many thanks for your help.

Mind you this could get a bit frought. I've just ordered £850 worth of grunt desktop instead of wriggling a wire or two.
Hopefully the wife will go with an offset deal on the grand she is spending on a new front tooth.

Cheers
Steve
 
zendog said:
It's working again!

The last thing I tried was wiggling all the PSU connectoors so I'm guessing something had worked loose.

Many thanks for your help.

Mind you this could get a bit frought. I've just ordered £850 worth of grunt desktop instead of wriggling a wire or two.
Hopefully the wife will go with an offset deal on the grand she is spending on a new front tooth.

Cheers
Steve
Click to expand...
lmao!! Glad you got it working (y)
 
If you've ordered online then distance selling regs may work for you & you could return it unopened?
 
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