Technical wizzes of hl2.net, I am in dire need of your assistance!

[Muffin Man]

My computer is borked! Fukt! Finished! I need you to try and advise me on how to get it back into working order, if you could be so kind.

Ok, so here's the deal.. my computer won't turn on. The lights on the computer go on, the fans start spinning, I hear some RAM beeps (I think it's the RAM, if I remember correctly from my technically inclined brothers), but there's no reaction from the screen or speakers. It just sits there. Doing nothing.

It was doing this every now and then before. I'd be pluggin' along and all the sudden the screen would turn off and everything would go dead. Manually shutdown, turn it back on, and it would be fine. It ran as good as it ever did. And then, earlier today, nothing.

Any ideas? I don't know what to do. I don't know if I ran it too hard, got a bad virus or what. I'm pretty desperate at the moment, using the shitt e-machines disposable computer in my parents' bedroom.

Any help is greatly, greatly appreciated.

 

[Gunner]

bad contact, motherboard is touching metal/case imo.

 

[Muffin Man]

How easy would that be to spot? I'm all for going in and fixing it, but I'm bad at the "spotting the problem" part of things.

 

[Asus]

First I would shut the power supply off from the back of the computer for ~20 seconds. Black power switch with the I and O (Not the red voltage switch). Should hear a small zap sound. Then flip it back on and try to turn the computer on.

It could be a short. Could be that a few capacitors within your PC are leaking.

 

[Gunner]

How easy would that be to spot? I'm all for going in and fixing it, but I'm bad at the "spotting the problem" part of things.

Well I had the same symptoms with an other pc, every thing you described and whenever the case got a slight nudge it would either reset or completely shut down. One day it just stopped working, fans would spin for a few seconds, and lights would come on but that's it.

I opened the case and had to remove every thing. Put every thing back in piece by piece, took a while but it solved the problem. I think it was because I forgot to put a washer on one of the screws. It was one of those motherboards that needed washers. Either that or things weren't tightly screwed and motherboard came into contact with the case when put upright.

But remember if you're gonna open the case, and remove every thing; might as well take the time to clean all the dust too

 

[Muffin Man]

Are the caps supposed to be perfectly flush with the motherboard? One or two might be bulging on the bottom, I'm not sure. I only gave it a quick look, I'm trying to study for a test and eat as well as figure out what the hell's wrong with my computer. I can provide pictures if needed.

EDIT: Turning the power supply off did nothing, and if the fans on yours only spun for a few seconds, mine will go as long as I want. If you turned off the screen and speakers, I'd never know anything was wrong. Also, forgot to mention, hard-drive light is constantly on.

 

[Hazar]

video card might have overheated as well

 

[Muffin Man]

Whole computer would stop functioning and the sound would pull a broken record and just give me a nice "eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh" thing as well. Don't know if the video card overheating would cause anything like that.

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[Qhartb]

You said the "RAM beeped". (It's actually BIOS, but often related to RAM problems.) Does it beep the same pattern (long and short beeps) and pitchs (low or high) that it beeps for normal startup?

 

[Muffin Man]

As far as I remember, yes. Two pretty quick beeps of normal pitch.

EDIT: Got to get off this computer for the night. I'll check back tomorrow.

 

[VirusType2]

My screen turned off once or twice in the past year, and rebooting fixed it. /worried


I wish I could be some help.

Assuming you know how to discharge the PC, I'd check all the connections to the motherboard. re-seat the connectors, ram, anything plugged into it.

Take a good look around in there while you are at it. See if you smell anything burnt too. Might want to check the processor is tight too.

Re-seat the video card and it's power supply cable if it has one.


Make sure all the fans are spinning, particularly the CPU and video card fans.

 

[Muffin Man]

I'll probably open it back up sometime soon and poke around. Take some pictures, check all the connections and everything. I'm no tech-wiz, but I've got a decent amount of experience poking around my computer. Here's hoping it's nothing too severe...

 

[Raziaar]

First I would shut the power supply off from the back of the computer for ~20 seconds. Black power switch with the I and O (Not the red voltage switch). Should hear a small zap sound. Then flip it back on and try to turn the computer on.

It could be a short. Could be that a few capacitors within your PC are leaking.

Oh god... now I have another thing to fret over with my computer ****ing up.

<nervously glances at his capacitors, wondering if they're going to explode and ruin his computer>