What's Wrong With My PC?


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cichlid

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Dec 2, 2006
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Hi

My old PC can only boot up intermittenly. It will boot up when I can hear the "engine" sound after I pressed the On button. If I can't hear any sound, that means it won't boot up.

From my description, any PC experts here can give some ideas as to what's wrong with my PC?

Thanks!
 

ohh i know, so simple... if you press and there is no engine sound means it has not been turned on. lol...
thats like telling someone i say hi to you but if i dont hear you say hi back to me means you never hear me. Why you never hear me?!!
 

Hi

My old PC can only boot up intermittenly. It will boot up when I can hear the "engine" sound after I pressed the On button. If I can't hear any sound, that means it won't boot up.

From my description, any PC experts here can give some ideas as to what's wrong with my PC?

Thanks!

got anything on screen a not during the sometimes cannot boot??
 

dying PSU ? hard to diagnose .. but chances are your PSU is dying
 

Hi

My old PC can only boot up intermittenly. It will boot up when I can hear the "engine" sound after I pressed the On button. If I can't hear any sound, that means it won't boot up.

From my description, any PC experts here can give some ideas as to what's wrong with my PC?

Thanks!

Sounds to me like your hard-disk is dying :think:...best you do a backup of all your important stuff and change the disk or get a new PC altogether...hint..sitex's round the corner
 

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dying PSU ? hard to diagnose .. but chances are your PSU is dying

Highly possible. Alternatively, a faulty motherboard. For other component failures, it will result in beep sounds than intermittent boot-ups.
 

for safety purposes...copy out all your data to external storage.

most likely its motherboard or powersupply related. what you can do is pay $30 for repair quotation. If it exceeds $250, dont bother repair if its very old. You can get a used p4 box at sim lim square for around that price.
 

Thanks all for the replies. I guess a new PC is unavoidable cos it got worst, don't want to boot up at all liao....
 

The pc fan is clogged or damaged?

I havn't checked the fan yet cos I'm not technically inclined and dare not open the casing.

After I pressed the ON button,the LCD does light up but didn't "move". The screen showed something like Press F1 for something, F10 for formating...something like that.

Oh ya, sometimes, it goes to the black screen with the words: insert disk...
 

I havn't checked the fan yet cos I'm not technically inclined and dare not open the casing.

After I pressed the ON button,the LCD does light up but didn't "move". The screen showed something like Press F1 for something, F10 for formating...something like that.

Oh ya, sometimes, it goes to the black screen with the words: insert disk...

Ur hard disk going to up the lorry liao..:sweat:
 

I havn't checked the fan yet cos I'm not technically inclined and dare not open the casing.

After I pressed the ON button,the LCD does light up but didn't "move". The screen showed something like Press F1 for something, F10 for formating...something like that.

Oh ya, sometimes, it goes to the black screen with the words: insert disk...

If it says that "CMOS Clocksum Error", then its the motherboard's battery that's drained.

For the "Insert disk..." part, can reflect a faulty HDD issue. Or possibly of incorrect boot sequence in CMOS. Pretty technical here, :bsmilie:
 

I havn't checked the fan yet cos I'm not technically inclined and dare not open the casing.

After I pressed the ON button,the LCD does light up but didn't "move". The screen showed something like Press F1 for something, F10 for formating...something like that.

Oh ya, sometimes, it goes to the black screen with the words: insert disk...

you can try to open up and see if your cables to the hd is loose.
 

Hi

My old PC can only boot up intermittenly. It will boot up when I can hear the "engine" sound after I pressed the On button. If I can't hear any sound, that means it won't boot up.

From my description, any PC experts here can give some ideas as to what's wrong with my PC?

Thanks!

Ur hard disk going to up the lorry liao..:sweat:

I agree with blazer_workz. It has happened to me before. Best to copy out all the stuff that you want to keep from the HDD before it completely dies.
 

you can try to open up and see if your cables to the hd is loose.

ya, may be I'll try that tonight.

I agree with blazer_workz. It has happened to me before. Best to copy out all the stuff that you want to keep from the HDD before it completely dies.

Yes, I've back up everything liao, thanks!
 

AMD Aton X2 Processors
7850 (2.8Ghz) Black Edition 3Mb
MSI 740GTM P25 AMD740G Mainboard wVGA/Gigabit Lan/ Sound
Kingston DDR2 667 2Gb Ram
Integerated 3D graphics
Seagate/WD 320Gb Sata 2 harddisk
Vios 6918/7271 Case w 450w PSU
Samsung 22x SATA DVD writer
MS KB + Mouse
MS Windows 7 Home Premium (OEM)

The above package sells for $605 from Fuwell, what do you guys think of the above package?

I intend to use it for web surfing, Photoshop - Elements 5 and Fifa 10.

Can the mainboard take a XFX 8400GS 512Mb DDR2 Tv-out/DVI graphic card? ($69)

Btw, I'm using the faulty PC now,heehe. Havn't got time to open it up but maybe when I open it up, it may be fatal :sweatsm:
 

AMD Aton X2 Processors
7850 (2.8Ghz) Black Edition 3Mb
MSI 740GTM P25 AMD740G Mainboard wVGA/Gigabit Lan/ Sound
Kingston DDR2 667 2Gb Ram
Integerated 3D graphics
Seagate/WD 320Gb Sata 2 harddisk
Vios 6918/7271 Case w 450w PSU
Samsung 22x SATA DVD writer
MS KB + Mouse
MS Windows 7 Home Premium (OEM)

The above package sells for $605 from Fuwell, what do you guys think of the above package?

I intend to use it for web surfing, Photoshop - Elements 5 and Fifa 10.

Can the mainboard take a XFX 8400GS 512Mb DDR2 Tv-out/DVI graphic card? ($69)

Btw, I'm using the faulty PC now,heehe. Havn't got time to open it up but maybe when I open it up, it may be fatal :sweatsm:


When you buy your new pc, just ask the guys there :)

and yeah it can take your 8400GS. I would suggest bumping it up to the what 240 or 250 (i never keep track after the renaming of the 9series) from Nvidea.
 

The package looks good.
Go all the way to 4 GB.
So you don't waste money upgrading later from 2 GB; and left with 2GB of ram don't know what to do with it.
Does that sound strange?
Not at all.
If you got 4 ram slots, the shop will fill with 512MB ram pieces to reach 2 GB.
When you upgrade to 4 GB later, have to remove all these and replace with 4 pieces of 1 GB ram.
 

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Hi

My old PC can only boot up intermittenly. It will boot up when I can hear the "engine" sound after I pressed the On button. If I can't hear any sound, that means it won't boot up.

From my description, any PC experts here can give some ideas as to what's wrong with my PC?

Thanks!

If you try to use certain software to diagnose. Don't trust all.
For example, I used Speedfan and it reported that only 1 fan in my PC was on.
The other two were dead and not spinning. 0 RPM.

Of course I opened the PC casing and turn on the PC. (DON'T DO THIS if you are not familiar and safety conscious there is a hazard of electrocution if you are not careful)

All three fans were visibly spinning well.

It is not the fault of the software author. I think he meant well.
But sometimes, hardware improves over time and he cannot possibly write software that will work with all hardware config.
 

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