Old PC : Dead ...

Dolby

Dolby

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So I thought about trading in an old PC I have at home at the Incredible Connection trade in. It hasn't been used for years and I don't even recall exactly what it is ... other than the Pentium II equivilant of AMD, 512MB RAM and 20GB HDD. It has Windows XP though.

Anyway - I decided to turn it on today and fan works - but nothing on the screen. I tried another PC on the same screen and it worked - so screen is 100%.

When I say nothing on the screen, I mean nothing : no motherboard logo or energy star or anything. However the screen knows when it's been connected - because the 'no signal' goes off the screen as soon as it's plugged in.

What can it be? I'm guessing Incredible Connection check these things to make sure they boot up?
 
Do the keyboard lights come on when you power on. If not then POST ain't even working. Check your CPU - otherwise its a dead mobo or cpu.
 
Grouter said:
Incredible don't check your trade-ins for these offers they have. I traded a good monitor and asked the guy "Aren't you going to see if it works?" and he said said "No. It looks like a monitor - that's good enough for us"
Click to expand...

Wonder if you can give them a empty case :D
 
The first thing to look at would be the RAM - cleaning and re-seating if you know what you are doing - same goes for if it has a display card - could be power supply - any sponging caps on the mobo? - if it is the PSU again look for bulging caps, the smaller AOpens were famous for it
 
Thanks for the replies!

The 3 keyboard lights do come on briefly - but there's no beep though.

CPU fan/power light works too, so I guess PSU works .... I checked cables, removed and reinserted RAM etc and they seem to be secured. Removed the HDD and placed it in my PC - that works too. I must say I tried opening the CD ROM drawer and it ddn't work :( It seems no power is going to the CD ROM.

I guess something just decided to die :/

Out of interest - if there was no power to CD ROM, HDD etc - surely I'd still see some sign of life on the monitor? BIOS info? Energy Star stuff?

Incredible do say they refurbish what they can, so I guess they could take out RAM, HDD and CD ROM should the motherboard or CPU be dead.
 
Dolby said:
Thanks for the replies!

Out of interest - if there was no power to CD ROM, HDD etc - surely I'd still see some sign of life on the monitor? BIOS info? Energy Star stuff?
Click to expand...

Correct. Now to remove the CPU and test it again, well i won't know. :p
 
How much do they drop of the price of items for trade ins and can you tradein more than 1 item againstc a purchase?
 
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