PC freeze ups, now refusing to boot

[Wenchkin]

Ok, I need a bit of techy help before I take a screwdriver to the PC

I'm using linux, and after a wee bit on Second Life I'm browsing the interwebs and the whole system freezes. Had to hit the off switch and start again, as it doesn't have a reboot button.

I boot up again, all seems perfect so I think I just had an unlucky crash. Then I barely get my browser loaded and it freezes out again. No error messages, no other screen wierdness and no smell of burning. So again I turn it off.

Third time unlucky though, it's now turning on, starting the fans and then switching off again.

Now I use Second Life quite a bit so I'm suspicious that my graphics card has failed, but as it won't power up properly I'm worried that something else is failing too. I can pull the graphics card out and run the onboard one to see if it boots, but I'm wary of turning it on and potentially making things worse too.

I think the graphics card is AGP X1950 or something like that.

Any suggestions?

Wenchy

 

[HellaFarris]

Any beeping noises before it switches itself off? If so count them and the length (e.g. 3 short and 3 long beeps) these can be used in conjunction with your mobo model to find out why it's getting th 'ump.

My own personal opinion is that the power supply is failing, if not gfx card - if not hard drive, in that order but I'm no expert (though I have dealt with a lot of fried PC's in the past).

 

[Wenchkin]

No beeps, it literally starts the fans and dies *mumbles* Can't say I admire its fighting spirit lol. So yeah, I think you're right, the PSU isn't acting very healthy. My partner's given me a spare PC while he gets parts in for a new one, then we can at least test the parts on my old PC to see what's working and whether it's worth repairing it.

I think when we're building the new puter tomorrow I'll strip the system down to it's onboard graphics/sound cards and disconnect my hard drives, then see if the PSU copes better and manages booting a live CD. If that worked I could try reconnecting bits one by one and see what happens. Hopefully no pyrotechnics lol.

Wenchy

 

[Shamus Turlough]

Power supply sounds quite suspect. Also, make sure the CPU fan is firmly attached to the CPU socket. Some motherboards have thermal protection that will shut off a PC if the fan wiggles loose from the CPU.

 

[Wenchkin]

Had a tinker with it yesterday, PSU looks ok, but even stripping the system right back it won't power up beyond starting the fans. The fan power was ok for the CPU, the case has a really stupid design where you need to move the PSU fan to remove a SATA drive so I disconnected that fan yesterday and it didn't come off loose at all. Glad you mentioned that though, I didn't realise that could stop a PC in its tracks

Time to get a new PSU methinks lol.

Wenchy

 

[Lefty]

I agree with the others. The PSU is usually the first monster to bear its head. Order and install a new one, be sure all your cables, PCI cards and ram are well seated and be sure to do a chkdsk when you first fire up. Also clean up any dust bunnies caking the fans. This too will cause irregular voltage and cause the mobo to shut down.

 

[RawHeadRex]

i agree with these guys. check power supply by using a spare backup. make sure it's something physical and not windows errr linux, check the equivlant of event viewer to see if anything leads up to the freeze. does it freeze in safe mode too ? if not than you know its prolly software related and not a bad cap on the mobo or the power supply.