Computer HELP needed

[Wishiniwuzfishin]

Had to replace the power supply in my computer due to the old one being fried by a power surge. New power supply seems to be working fine (all fans working and dvd drawer opens and closes.

PROBEM NOW IS computer is not booting. Monitor dispays "no signal" and no sound at all from hard drive. Computer is NOT even trying to boot.

Wondering where to look first. Hard drive...motherboard......memory sticks....or even somewhere ese ?????


Everything is plugged in or connected as it should be. Computer is just not booting.

 

[Brokenrod]

Re: Computer HELP needed

Same thing happened to my stepsons puter. He replaced the power supply as you did, but it showed the same symptoms as yours. After some troubleshooting, it turns out that something in his motherboard was fried also. I can get details, but its gonna be a day or two.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Computer HELP needed

It's the motherboard. Unfortunately you can't really "regret" the power supply purchase because you would indeed have to ruled that out first. Unless you can find a good deal on one on ebay or something, you're probably better off with a new machine.

 

[Bounce19712]

Re: Computer HELP needed

sometimes there is a light which shows power is ON, on the motherboard.... do you have a light?

without a beep code coming from the PC it is prolly, like mentioned already, the motherboard.....it's not terribly difficult to replace a motherboard....but then you'll be at the next step which is RAM and HD which could also be bad....

decision time. how old is your stuff? what can be brought into another machine as far as parts are concerned? what was the wattage on the power supply?

do you like playing with parts,parts and build a new pc?

 

[Wishiniwuzfishin]

Re: Computer HELP needed

First of all, thanks for all the fast and very helpful replies.

I kinda figured the power surge didn't stop at the power supply but had no idea where to look next.

The new power supply (300 watt) was "only" $22 including shipping, so I figured it was a good place to start. The old one definetely tested bad.

The computer is 3-4 years old (meaning it's obsolete by today's standards LOL) but I'm on a tight budget (and really cheap!!!) so I'm going to have to think about what I am going to do. The computer is only used for getting on the internet.

So I guess the order of troubleshooting steps would be:

1.Motherboard

2.Hard drive

3.???????

Where would the CPU and Ram sticks come in line?

There are no beeps that I can hear and the only light I see is coming from the dvd drive.

I do like tinkering with stuff, but also am considering the hassle of trying to test everything and ending up replacing most of the parts if the surge went through the whole computer.

 

[Bounce19712]

Re: Computer HELP needed

yeah, it could be time to order just a combo deal from say, newegg.com of motherboard and proccessor...and since ram has fallen in price since 6-7 years ago.....if your old stuff isn't compatible...

I bet the harddrive is OK... but ram or processor would be questionable....

right fellas?




.

 

[kax2000]

Re: Computer HELP needed

Check the motherboard for swollen capacitors.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Computer HELP needed

I'd say 84.567% chance it's the motherboard. 3-4 years old isn't bad and you may have a good chance at finding a board reasonably on ebay etc. I recently worked on an older Dell for a friend and unfortunately for her, the cost of the boards I was finding just weren't practical compared to a whole new rig for like $400 from best buy which is what she ended up doing. I sold her old rig for parts on CL for like $30-50 or somewheres thereabouts.

 

[dwco5051]

Re: Computer HELP needed

I had a similar experience a few years back and found a deal a Circut City on a whole new computer that was last years model that cost almost nothing with the rebates.

Since my backups were not what they should have been for $22 I bought a universal USB drive adapter and was able to retrieve everything on it. I still use that drive as a second backup external drive so I now have two externals and switch between them and keep one in my detached shop between backups.

 

[Ibl0wstuffup]

Re: Computer HELP needed

What kind of pc/ motherboard is it? I bought used boards in the past for cheap.from ebay to repair a pc that was hit by a surge. There are people on ebay that part out old pcs. Also try looking for a pc repair place. One at the flea market near me has tons of used parts from machines that werent worth fixing. The flea market also has acomputer show once a month where you can find tons of used good parts.

 

[Wishiniwuzfishin]

Re: Computer HELP needed

Emachines computer. No idea what brand motherboard. Would it say on the board itself?

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Computer HELP needed

For an Emachines, the model number should be enough to find you a board on ebay.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Computer HELP needed

I suggest you get a UPS for your next computer. They do way more than just a surge protector does. I've had the power go out on a bright sunny day in the middle of composing a very lengthy email to an insurance company regarding a claim on my truck for a branch that fell on it. All of a sudden, the world goes dark and the UPS starts fussing at me (making a chirping sound.) I hurry up and save the email and properly shut down the computer. When the power comes back on, I lost nothing.

This one has a USB cable that goes to it and if the power goes out, you can set it up to automatically shut down your computer after a set number of minutes so it won't kill the battery in the UPS. I discovered my computer off one morning and come to find out the power had gone out that night due to a storm. I rebooted it and it didn't even give me the windows boot error from an improper shutdown procedure (just turning it off, not shutting it down) so the UPS did shut down the computer properly while I was asleep.

I have this UPS and it is awesome. I mean, look at the price and the reviews!!!!!! Oh yea, the battery is just a little 12v sealed lead acid battery you can buy anywhere. It's as easy to change as the batteries in a flashlight.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=uninterruptible+power+supply&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10763699027782463465&sa=X&ei=QjBYTs_0HMOJsAKCp5G4DA&ved=0CJMBEPMCMAE

 

[woodsyfeller]

Re: Computer HELP needed

I may be way off here but try to replace the little button battery on your bios chip No bios= no boot it may not be the problem but if it is its an easy fix.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Computer HELP needed

I may be way off here but try to replace the little button battery on your bios chip No bios= no boot it may not be the problem but if it is its an easy fix.

Exactly, the BIOS battery is probably bad, costs about $3 for a 3 pack of them and can save you a ton of time and frustration, believe me, been there done that!

 

[hrdwrkingacguy]

Re: Computer HELP needed

What I would do is remove everything that isn't vital(The HD, CD-Rom, any cards in expansion slots) until you just have a motherboard and video card and ram and processor...Do the procedure to reset the motherboard bios...Usually just unplugging the machine, hold down the power button for a few seconds to discharge any capacitors on the mobo, and moving a jumper to clear the bios...Then try to start it...Make sure all the power plugs from the powersupply are plugged into the motherboard where they go...If you get lucky and its starts and goes to the post screen, you can add things back one at a time till you find the culprit...I have thrown away a few motherboards over the years when just a stick of ram was bad...

Typically newegg with have motherboards of all different slot types and you can probably just get a motherboard and put everything on it and get away fairly cheap...A model # would help...