Broken Computer

J

jaredc

Geek Trainee
Ok to start off, I had some symptoms before the computer all out crashed. It would totally freeze up and i would have to manually restart. Sometimes the computer would work fine for hours, then do it, and sometimes it would only work for a bit. It even froze when i went into SAFE MODE.

Then two days ago it froze just like this, and i robooted and it wouldn't boot at all, and would freeze in the bios screen before windows started booting up.

There are no wierd noises or smells coming from the machine (its not smoking... lol).

Before it totally crashed i was able to run chkdsk, and a memory checker, and both came through just fine.

mobo:A8N-Sli Deluxe
CPU:4200 X2 socket 939
PSU: just replaced a half a year ago, with a 550w (forgot which kind)
GPU: 8800 GTS 320mb
RAM: 2gb DDR
Hard Drive: 250 GB hitachi


I'm totally confused at what it could be. I took the whole thing apart, and dusted the CPU heat sink (which was very dusty), and the thermal paste of the CPU indicates very high temps, however I am completely unsure. I am a college student, and i absolutely need to fix this! I have no transportation to stores etc., so newegg is gonna be the name of the game. I'm gonna replace the PSU with the old one to see if that solves it. If that doesn't solve it I would imagine its a Hard drive failure.... what do you guys think?


Thank you for Any Help :(
 
I doubt it is your hard drive, its gotta be motherboard, memory or the PSU, disconnect everything except your GFX card just to be sure though and if it goes through the post screen and gives you a boot disk error then you may be right.
 
Thanks for the reply. I will try what you've said. When you say unplug everything, what exactly do you mean? Just run with mobo, processor, psu, and ram?

I will test this soon, then I will also plug in the old psu to see if that does anything.

Does anybody else have any insight on this problem? .... otherwise this might be a good excuse for me to get a new mobo, i7, 6gb ddr3, new psu... hahahah
 
Ok here's the update... :(

Now the screen doesn't even turn on and show the bios when the computer starts.

I tried what you said and unplugged all unnecessary things, including one try w/hard drive, and one try w/o hard drive. Both tries were unsuccessful. I am not able to see anything on he display, nor do i hear the normal sounds of my computer working, just the fans.

This doesn't point to a video card problem... does it? My computer went from random freezes, and having to manually restart. To very frequent freezes, to not being able to boot up windows, and now the monitor won't even turn on.... :doh:

????????? lol hellllppp
 
hi jaredc...i am thinking about your monitor. i haven't seen all the monitors in the world but usually, when you boot up the orange of the power light turns to green to confirm a video connenction. is yours doing so? it could be that you have an extremely poorly gpu!! in other words..dead! can you swap it out for another one to test? i mention this as possibly the easiest test first....as your h/d and mem seem to have passsed your tests earlier. next (or possibly first) i would check the psu rails. let us know.
 
jaredc said:
Ok here's the update... :(

Now the screen doesn't even turn on and show the bios when the computer starts.

I tried what you said and unplugged all unnecessary things, including one try w/hard drive, and one try w/o hard drive. Both tries were unsuccessful. I am not able to see anything on he display, nor do i hear the normal sounds of my computer working, just the fans.

This doesn't point to a video card problem... does it? My computer went from random freezes, and having to manually restart. To very frequent freezes, to not being able to boot up windows, and now the monitor won't even turn on.... :doh:

????????? lol hellllppp
Click to expand...

Don't worry we'll get you there in the end - have you tried booting with just one stick of ram in? (make sure to earth yourself properly before touching them)

If you have a spare GFX card that would be an excellent first thing to try as bazzer suggested


EDIT: you said you don't hear the 'normal' sounds any more - are you saying that the hard drives are not spinning up?
 
Update:

I took out all non essentials, and then w/o the HDD--No Luck
Sometimes the computer screen goes on and shows the bios, but it freezes. Sometimes the screen doesn't even come out of hibernate. :doh:

I tried with either stick of ram in the first slot-- no luck.

I tried with another power supply, the computer managed to boot all the way into vista, and i was able to do cntrl+alt+delete, and look at it, then the computer completely froze. (this got me excited... lol) So perhaps this switch of psu's reset the mobo.... i have no clue. When i tried to boot up again it would just not even boot like it did before.

The computer doesn't make any usual 'thinking' noises while its running, meaning i don't hear the Hard drive run except for right at first sometimes. However could this even be a hard drive problem because the computer won't even get all the way through the bios screen?

So what is this looking like to you guys, mobo failure, cpu failure, hard drive failure... or something else????

Thanks so much for all your support!
 
do you get the best results from dead cold? if so, it still could be a heat problem. pity if it's the mobo; great board; had one myself. the only shortcoming was the crappy chipset fan which i replaced. this combined chipset gets real toasty without good active cooling. just a thought though maybe it's not important enough to cause such instant instability....
personally, at this point i would probably think of bench-testing the board outside the case...desperate measures!!!
 
lol capacitor plague.... never heard of that until now! :chk:

I'm gonna probably put a buddies gfx card in there, just to make sure it isn't my card (cause i don't have money to replace a whole computer + another gfx card).

After i affirm that its for sure not my gfx card I'm gonna go for a i7, 6 gigs of ram, and a new psu. If anybody thinks i'm dumb for doing this, please do tell me--really.

I am gonna be on here a lot still to check if anbody has anything else to possibly add. Lol otherwise i guess i have some free DDR ram, and a x-finity 550 watt psu for anybody!!!

I'll be checking on here for any possible solutions still, so please post! I'll check for 'capacitor plague'... but i somehow doubt it.
 
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