Dead PC

lancsdave

lancsdave

Peel Monument
Overlooker
For no apparent reason my PC died last night. The power was still on but it stopped functioning while I was in the middle of printing something.

When I tried rebooting I wasn't even getting the bios information. I suspect that means the motherboard has died or the chip has died. How do I tell. When I switch it on, the fan on the heatsink is still alive.

I took my hard drive out and put it in another PC and it won't boot up, I get the blue screen which says STOP on it !! If I boot up using the XP disk it does see the drive, and I now have the drive attached to the spare PC as a slave. That way I can at least do some backups :rolleyes:

Am I missing something that allows this drive to boot up on a different PC. ?

Contrary to what a certain memebr thinks on here I'm not a techy, just dabble with hardware so this one has me puzzled.
 
Correct, there are lots of low level drivers that basically will be different, its trying to talk german to a frenchman :D

As for teh PC, try resetting teh CMOS by removing the battery off teh m/board for a good 30 mins then try booting with just CPU, GFX and 1 stick of ram. Remove everything else. If this works, try adding stuff back one piece at a time. If you don't get anywhere, try a different stick of ram and gfx card

If you still don't get anywhere, buy one of those PCs you were selling :D
 
Yep i remember trying that entwisi on my old dell that died - was told to try that method [i forgot about that sorry Dave lol] it was definately dead, it isnt a dell is it dave.....?
 
entwisi said:
Correct, there are lots of low level drivers that basically will be different, its trying to talk german to a frenchman :D

As for teh PC, try resetting teh CMOS by removing the battery off teh m/board for a good 30 mins then try booting with just CPU, GFX and 1 stick of ram. Remove everything else. If this works, try adding stuff back one piece at a time. If you don't get anywhere, try a different stick of ram and gfx card

If you still don't get anywhere, buy one of those PCs you were selling :D
Click to expand...

I can't afford one of them :D

Am I right in thinking that even if I don't have a hard drive in the PC I should still get some sort of response from the bios ?
 
accymel said:
Yep i remember trying that entwisi on my old dell that died - was told to try that method [i forgot about that sorry Dave lol] it was definately dead, it isnt a dell is it dave.....?
Click to expand...


Not a Dell, it's a Blue Peter one :)
 
Yes, BIOS or (POST Power On Self Test, yes I know, uber geek) needs only CPU, gfx and a small amount of RAM, In Fact a lot of M/boards carry a tiny amount of RAm to POST without any RAM installed. One thing that srings to mind, one board I had wouldn't post as the jumper used to reset the CMOS had been left on 'reset'
 
entwisi said:
Yes, BIOS or (POST Power On Self Test, yes I know, uber geek) needs only CPU, gfx and a small amount of RAM, In Fact a lot of M/boards carry a tiny amount of RAm to POST without any RAM installed. One thing that srings to mind, one board I had wouldn't post as the jumper used to reset the CMOS had been left on 'reset'
Click to expand...

Not changed any jumpers so it shouldn't be that. Looks like I might have to 'work' from home this afternoon and start the process you posted.

Thanks for the help and will let you know how it goes.
 
Well looks like my motherboard is retired so going to have to buy a new one. Don't know about the CPU until I get a new motherboard.

Managed to get my hard drive to boot up in a different PC after some arguments with XP Repair !!!, so that's a relief, better get some backups done before I forget :D
 
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