A lady called me last week out of the blue, she said she'd gotten my name from a previous client for whom I'd repaired a PC.
So I get it home and start playing with it today. Supposedly she suspects a bad Mobo or HDD (what the Circuit City jerks told her.) The Computer is an AMD Duron 700 MHz, 20 gig quantum fireball hdd, etc. Anyway, I plug it in and it fires up just fine. To sort of test the HDD, I decide to do a trial install of Office, goes on fine, everything works. Citing that the program loads rather slowly, I threw in a couple extra used 128 sticks I had, ram is upgraded from 64 to 320. Starts even faster, multitasks well, etc. So, figuring that maybe the recent install of windows ME was corrupt (it's a junk OS anyway) I start a clean install of Win2k.
For some reason or another, the Compaq restore CD the lady had used partitions the HDD into two separate drives. No biggie, I delete the partitions and start it formatting the whole drive in NTFS. After about 10 minutes it gets only to 2% and stops. I restarted it... got the Compaq splash screen and that's it. And the next ten restarts yield nothing at all. Just the drives spinning up, no beep codes, nothing.
As of right now I'm torn between whether it's the Mobo or the Hard Drive. A couple times, attempting to get it to boot, a clank from the arm/actuator can be heard, as if the hard drive was sort of giving up. However, booting it with no drives connected at all, I still didn't even get a POST, or any video output, no CMOS screen, nothing.
Anyone have any ideas? I have an extra hard drive sitting around I can test in it, but I hope the mobo won't cause it to do the clanking thing as I sort of need this spare drive.
So, where do I start? No POST, no beeps, nothing. It's almost as if it stops working once it heats up. The CPU stays cool and the fan works.
I would say since you don't even see any BIOS stuff that it is most likely not the HD but the mobo. Even if the HD is shot you should be able to get into the BIOS. You should be able to use a boot disk as well if the HD is shot. Another possibility is the CPU. They can do strange things when they fail. It almost seems like that could be what it is since you were running windows, albeit slowy, before the boot problems.
Brian your mobo is not likely at fault either. Sounds like a heat issue to me. Is the CPU heatsink loaded up with dust? Also, unplug the memory you installed, all the ide cables then power it back up. Works? F10 to go into the bios on cumpaqers. Set the boot order.
But to me it sounds like a heat issue.
Oh and the restore cd does that because it loads up the windows cab files and there proprietary restore tools on that partition. Ever notice that a compaq (or dell, gateway for that matter) never asks for the windows disk?
I'd try another power supply first, if not for any other reason than the last several PC's I've looked at that didn't POST did so because of bad power supplies. If you've got an extra one kicking around it's an easy thing to try and doesn't cost anything
I think Claude makes a great point with the heat issue, it could easily cause they problems, and it is relatively easy to diagnose.
I don't know how many times I've heard "it works for like 15 minutes then it stops, after an hour or so it works again"
And brian saying he did have it up and running once.
If you have another hard drive lying around i'd put it in in the meantime anyway. Those Quantum Fireball hard drives have a tendency to live up to their name. I can't recall how many i've replaced over the years working for the school district. I know i've replaced nearly every one that was installed in the first round of computers we purchased for when the new middle school was built. So start there and if that doesn't help things try digging up a bios update to flash over top of the old one. Heck even if it's the same bios version it wouldn't hurt to try it anyways as something may not have written right when the bios was first programmed.
That was my first thought as well.
However, if you heard the hard drive make a "clunk" noise, that is usually a sign that it is getting ready to give up the ghost. Could be multiple issues instead of just one.
I suspected the RAM right away so I pulled it back out with no changes. I, too have lately been considering the power supply to be at fault. I have a working PS, HDD and Mobo that I can try in there. I cleaned most of the dust out of the heatsink, but I'm doubting that because it doesn't even get too warm. I'll play the switch-a-roo game later tonight and see what I come up with.
Older compaqs and gateways are notorius for heating issues, Sounds to me like a MOBO heating issue If your not even seeing bios its not the HDD, System will check Memory then Drives. If its not getting to the drives it is definately a MoBo isssue
I would think that if it were a heat issue the thing would at least POST, even if it only stayed on just long enough to do so. However, if the PS is failing the MoBo might not even come to life. I've actually got another computer to add to the bad PS list now - my brother's GF (the one that bought my old Dell laptop) gave me her AMD Duron 900 because it wouldn't start. The problem was intermittant at first but degraded to the point that the machine would not start at all. With the case side off I could see that when the power button is pressed the CPU and chipset fans would momentarily spin, then everything would go dead. I tried the PS out of an old AMD K63/450 I've got lying around and it started right up. It's got 256MB of RAM, a 20GB HDD, and a newer 52Xburner. It's also got a real, honest-to-goodness copy of Windows ME - the first I've ever had :D
Now if only I could think of something to do with it. I've already got the new Gateway and the Dell desktop, so a third computer isn't much good to me...
Well My second thought, knowing that it will still not post when the machine is cool....... Do swap the power supply, I've not experianced this problem as many times as thunder chicken but I never rule out anything.. Try this, as funny as it sounds. Pull the Cpu and Ram out and power it up. It should Give a fualt code of some sort. I can't recall what the Cpu Beep code is but the memory one is about 5 beeps in a row then silence.
Also if you can find a bios reset jumper, reset the bios. If you can't, unplug the computer, pull the battery and push and hold the power button for a couple of seconds. That will clear the bios.
I´m for the CMOS, too...
A method i use to diagnose bad hardware is unpluggin every device in the mobo, leaving the only the RAM, and give a try. I had troubles with the detection for the BIOS of modems and Video Cards...
Sounds stupid, but check the Floppy drive, if its correctly connected. My old acer hardly boots if a floppy drive is not connected. Check the IDE cables of all connected drives, maybe any of them are faulty....
Last, like Claude said, try the CPU removal , and if posible, the BIOS removal (physical removal). Yeah, the dust can get the computers crazy...
I was going to suggest the BIOS flash, but i remember you cant past the "Splash screen"...
thunder chicken,
you can give your extra comp to my mom hers is running hella slow and i cant figure out whats wrong with it besides its 10 years old and full of junk files and stuff
PS would be my first guess, also try a new power cord if you are using hers, ppl do very strange things with those, those compaq PSU's are ass.
this will cause all kinds of problems, including the clunk as the drive it not getting enough power to spin up.
second, heat (could also be caused by bad voltages) clean everything up and make sure nothing is getting toasty hot.
third would be cpu or MB.. either one can cause similar symtops. but my first stop would be ac cord, then psu (if nothing is on fire when the symtoms start and the cpu fan is all clean ect.. )
Well, here's an update. I tried a working PS with no results. So, I figure, it's about 90% chance that it'll be the motherboard. A couple problems here, though.
First, the known good board I was going to test out is a regular ATX form factor, and this thing, being a compaq, uses what appears to be a Mini ATX (3 PCI's and an AGP port.) So that means I have no way to test a good mobo in the PC.
Another potential problem that I see is that all the controls and lights for the front of the case come through to the board on a single plug instead of individual ones. Assuming that maybe, possibly this arrangement is a standard one, the plug MIGHT work on an aftermarket mobo, but if someone knows otherwise, please inform me. If I tell the lady she needs a new case, PS and mobo, chances are she won't want to pursue fixing this. Plus, chances are that the CD drive and hard drive are on the way out too.
I think tommorow I'm going to throw the HDD into my working computer and see if it's salvagable. If it formats and stores data ok, then that's even more evidence leaning towards a bad mobo.
I wouldnt spend anymore time on it, Youe MoBo is . Tell her what she needs build her one for about 300 useing new parts from m-wave. then charge her 400 for the whole thing.
:iagree: It wouldn't be worth trying to find a Compaq mobo, and you couldn't fit a standard mobo into the Compaq case, so it's time to put it out to pasture. If she doesn't want to go for a whole new computer, you might try a new mobo and case/PSU and use her existing stuff. Of course, if the MoBo is bad it might have eaten the processor and/or RAM as well...
Yeah it sounds like the whole thing may have gotten zapped pretty good by an electrical surge or something. Compaqs are pretty much disposable proprietary pieces of garbage when it comes to finding parts that will fit them.
yah, if the com MB is toast. time to go with a older intergrated Nforce board and build a brand new one for like 300 bucks
compaq's always include the driversfor the computer on the first partition, and the windows files are on the other partion. I would just try to sell her another computer instead of fixing that one. If it dosent post it is the motherboard.
If the hard drive makes any noise huck it. If a hard drive makes any noise, something isnt right with it, and there isnt a whole lot to go wrong.
Here's the thing of it all, she only wants this PC to be fixed, if possible, to be used as a second computer. They're going shopping soon for a new one, and this was going to be her oldest daughter's personal computer. So I doubt she'll want to have me build one.
So, assuming she doesn't want to pursue further repairs, here's the question. Do I still charge her for my time?
Brian, when I was working for Aport, we charged a diag fee. Even if they didn't want us to fix it. Time is money.
a couple of places down here charge $10 for a diagnossis.
I charge 25+parts to fix a PC but then again i only do it for freinds. If it not a freind its 25 per hr min of 1 hr
I always let 'em know up front that it is $40/hour plus parts, if any.
Now that sounds more like it Jim.
I charged $35/hour mininum of one hour.
Of course I do NOT do this for friends, kind of like when you ask your body shop buddy to help you with your car and he keeps blowing you off.
i really only do it for family, so it is nornally just parts. speaking of, i have to fix my brother-in-laws soon..
I called the lady today and gave her the bad news and she offered a couple times to pay me but instead just let me keep the computer. So I guess all is well. Maybe I can use the HDD for something if'n it isn't trashed.