Computer Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter ez_willis
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ez_willis

ez_willis

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... but not my recording computer, it's the kid's computer.

When the Power button is pressed, it sounds like a quiet garbage disposer is turned on. There's a few seconds of a light grinding noise, sort of, then it shuts back off. After about 10 attempts or so, it powers up.


Hard drive?

Power supply?

There is nothing obstructing any of the fans. I took the sides off and blew it off with compressed air, so it's clean.
 
btw if your kid's goy anything he needs to keep on that hard drive, better get it backed up pronto
 
sounds like the hard drive is toast to me. next you get it up, back it up while you can.
 
ez_willis said:
... but not my recording computer, it's the kid's computer.

When the Power button is pressed, it sounds like a quiet garbage disposer is turned on. There's a few seconds of a light grinding noise, sort of, then it shuts back off. After about 10 attempts or so, it powers up.


Hard drive?

Power supply?

There is nothing obstructing any of the fans. I took the sides off and blew it off with compressed air, so it's clean.
Click to expand...

Now,

first thing, since it does start up and powers on after 10 attempts it does sound like a HD problem, HOWEVER a compu ter will start up even if the hard drive crashed, it will not boot that's about all... It SHOULD "hang" in POST, but since your saying it doesn't even get there, and it just turns off, I'm beginning to think it's a PS problem actually. Take a PS from another computer and test it in there. That should solve your problem right there.
 
Good call,...any possibility the fan on the CPU cooler is going? I've heard these things when the bearings give out, they sound horrible. Some mother boards will shut the pc down if the fan doesn't come up to speed or if the CPU over-heats. I'm wondering if that on that 10th try, the fan finally gets some momentum then spins up sufficiently to keep things running.

Just a thought.
 
punkin said:
Good call,...any possibility the fan on the CPU cooler is going? I've heard these things when the bearings give out, they sound horrible. Some mother boards will shut the pc down if the fan doesn't come up to speed or if the CPU over-heats. I'm wondering if that on that 10th try, the fan finally gets some momentum then spins up sufficiently to keep things running.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...


OH I forgot about that too. Yeah, it's a precautionary measure that motherboards have to prevent the cpu from overheating. YOu might want to check that. GOOD look punkin
 
Here is an easier and cheaper solution: get rid of the kid.
 
Reggie said:
Here is an easier and cheaper solution: get rid of the kid.
Click to expand...

She's 16 and a straight A student. The plan to get her lost into the University system is almost complete. A need to nurse it for two more years. :p
 
punkin said:
Good call,...any possibility the fan on the CPU cooler is going?
Click to expand...

Very good possibility!

I hadn't thought of that. I'll drop a new one in tonight and see if that's it.

Thanks.
 
When you have the sides off, power up the PC and see if the CPU fan is spinning.
It should be easy to figure out if the hard disk is bad by listening to it, but as mentioned that won't prevent the PC from turning on (so I doubt that's it). My vote is more towards the CPU overheating. I had a CPU fan go out on me a few years back and your symptoms are similar. It may even run for a while until it overheats.
 
Ez, you could pull that hard drive and stick it in another pc to find out if something is wrong with it. It probably wouldn't take you more than 1/2 hour to find out if the hard drive is ok.
 
punkin said:
Good call,...any possibility the fan on the CPU cooler is going? I've heard these things when the bearings give out, they sound horrible.
Click to expand...

That would be my guess. Replaced one of these a couple of months ago on my PC. It was squalling like a cat in heat.
 
taylorguitarman said:
My vote is more towards the CPU overheating.
Click to expand...

It's not overheating. I entered the BIOS after it finally booted up. I checked to make sure it wasn't a System Fan thing.
 
TravisinFlorida said:
Ez, you could pull that hard drive and stick it in another pc to find out if something is wrong with it. It probably wouldn't take you more than 1/2 hour to find out if the hard drive is ok.
Click to expand...

The only extra hard drive I have is on my chick's old computer and it's running an AMD processor.

Will it boot up if there's an Intel processor on the problem computer?

I won't pull my hard drive out. I'll buy a new one first.
 
ez_willis said:
The only extra hard drive I have is on my chick's old computer and it's running an AMD processor.

Will it boot up if there's an Intel processor on the problem computer?

I won't pull my hard drive out. I'll buy a new one first.
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood me. You can pull the hard drive from your kid's computer and connect it to yours as a slave. If it runs fine that way, you know what the problem isn't.
 
ez_willis said:
The only extra hard drive I have is on my chick's old computer and it's running an AMD processor.

Will it boot up if there's an Intel processor on the problem computer?

I won't pull my hard drive out. I'll buy a new one first.
Click to expand...

As long as the operating system on your chicks PC is running any Windows version prior to XP (XP can only boot on the PC it was installed on) then her drive should be bootable on your PC assuming everything else is in tact (and vice versa if you are also running pre XP Windows). Intel or AMD doesnt really matter. This is extremely easy to do and I wouldnt hesitate to try it because even if you get a new Hard drive your gonna have to yank out the old one at some point anyway.

Before doing that though I would try simply removing the hard drive from its chasis while still connected to your PC and hold it in your hand or next to your ear while booting up the PC to see if thats where the noise is indeed coming from.

TravisinFlorida said:
You can pull the hard drive from your kid's computer and connect it to yours as a slave.
Click to expand...

Although slaving can work too, I'm of the opinion a strait up swap is a much easier and trouble free way of simple diagnosis if you can do it because slaving often requires pin reassignnment, manual reconfiguration of boot allocation, and any drive formatted in FAT or FAT32 wont be able to read the contents of a drive thats been formatted in NTSF with XP. If your both running XP your gonna have to slave them though.

I find its actually a great idea to hold on to those old small capacity hard drives (under 5 gigs) you probably cant do anything else with these days and load them with Windows 98 or 2000 just for the purpose of PC,OS, or HD diagnosis.
 
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