HELP Please! I think I broke it.

[TonyA]

Hi some help and advise please.
My son has a relatively old Pc thats been upgraded over time.
It started life with a Gigabyte GST 800, 2.4 P4 etc
It has been upgraded to

2 * 250 HDD
2 * DVD RW
1 * Stiffy
GF Force 6600Gt
1024 Mb Ram DDR 266


Last when the boy logged off and shut after playing Morrow wind all was fine.

When he rebooted it displayed and error loading Win Xp Pro Service pack 2 " some driver (NTFS Kernel) was corrupt. After some fiddling with Win XP disc I managed to get it to boot and then found that it gave an error that said unable to load resources (from Windows). I checked PC properties and found it only registered 256 Mb ram. Closed down machine and opened up.

Reaseated all the Ram. In doing so Had to remove graphics card (6600GT). replaced all and checked connections , all fine. Rebooted and found no graphics to monitor. Checked again and still had same problem PC appears to boot Lights come on, network connection light on Router goes on, DVD lights flash and then go off. Red Light indicating HDD access stays on (or perhaps its Bios indicating fault). Monitor does not come on, power light flashes but does not receive graphics. I Think I damaged either

RAM
Graphics Card
or Mother Board

Any one got any advice. To replace PC may cost a lot as HDD are IDE, Graphics card is AGP etc. I understand most new mother boards are SATA, PCI express etc. If I replace can I still keep the HDD and DVD.

Ie Buy new mother board, new graphics card and new RAm (2GB FSB 800)

Thanks in advance

 

[|tera|]

Don't chuck it away yet, if you've got the manual, read and check where to clear the cmos, using a jumper. Hold on to some stainless steel taps to ground yourself before fiddling inside the pc. Remove the power cable from the motherboard(where it connects into the mobo), make sure everything is plugged out at the back, power, mouse, keyboard, everything. Clear the cmos for about a minute to be sure, don't forget to put the jumper back in it's default place, plug everything back in and see if it works, try that first and tell us if it boots.

 

[The Big Firefly]

disconnect everthing and reconnect. it happened to me alot.....and your graphics card....push it it tight....make sure it connect corectly....set bios to fail-save or default(what ever option you have)....

 

[TonyA]

Thanks, Tried that earlier, no joy.
The PC is four years old so maybe its just gone to PC Heaven

 

[|tera|]

If it has two ram sticks, remove one and boot and swop with the other one and try and boot again, the ram could be faulty.

 

[|tera|]

Edit: lol sorrry I posted in the wrong thread hahahahaha

 

[Random717]

are there any beeping sounds when you turn it on? (check the pc speaker is connected)
try removing both the ram and the graphics card and see if there are any beeps, than put them in one at a time and see if there are any beeps..
no beeps at all would indicate a faulty mobo or pc speaker, other beeps would point towards the ram/gfx
beep beep beep <-- cause i was having fun typing it

 

[TonyA]

Thanks I've tried most of those including RAM swop, reseating graphics etc. Cannot change Bios as I have no graphics (also no beeps), any thing else I can try to get this aging PC alive?

 

[Random717]

try a different power supply if you can. also have you unplugged all peripherals except for keyboard, graphics card, ram?
last thing would be to try another cpu if you can get hold of one

 

[TonyA]

Hi Listened for beeps and there were none, normally when graphics card goes it beeps, this time nothing. Have not tried with nothing connected. It appeared to be working before I took it apart to see why Win XP was only reading 256 Mb and after I fiddled nothing. I took all the ram out placed them in different slots (2 * 128 (ddr 266) 1* 1024 *ddr 400) and replaced graphics card and its power supply. I"ve checked all connections but nothing. When it switches on the HDD light and DVD lights come on. The power light comes on. DVD lights go off, HDD light seems to stay on, Monitor stays in sleep mode.

 

[|tera|]

Are you sure a cmos clear didn't work? Try removing the cmos battery for 5 minutes and put it back again, this sounds like it could be the mobo. Remove the ddr 266 ram and just leave the ddr 400.

 

[TonyA]

OK I'll try. Come back later

 

[|tera|]

It better work, arghhh!

 

[TonyA]

Nope CMOS did't work. Suspect other than HDDs and DVDs there's very little I can salvage from this one. RIP

 

[|tera|]

Oh my, that's that then

 

[[3]Shadow]

have you checked the monitor cable to the graphics card (check in the connector for a bent pin) - i managed to bend one of the pins once and had a blank screen as a result

 

[Nokkie]

my ipod nano died for some reason?!

 

[TonyA]

Monitor's fine checked it another PC

 

[|tera|]

Hey TonyA, last resort, change the power supply, if that doesn't work, the mobo is busted!

Have a great evening, sorry you didn't get it working

 

[Highflyer_GP]

Probably the PSU, I had the same problem (the error is displayed on a blue screen). PSU's don't like to be switched on and off all the time - think of it as a car ignition system. Over time, wear and tear will start taking it's toll. What I do now is leave the PC on all the time and only switch it off maybe once a week. Also bear in mind that the 6600GT requires at least a 350W PSU, and you're powering 2xHD's + 2xDVD RW drives in addition to that. Try the other PC's PSU in this one and see if that's the cause. If not, then I suggest swopping the components over to the other PC one by one to determine which one is screwed. If everything checks out fine on the other PC then it's the mobo.

Be grateful that it doesn't display that the C:\windows\system32\config\system file is corrupted, in which case it won't boot at all and requires a repair install (also happened to me!).