PC won't start?

[Brighteye]

My old (6 years) PC doesn't start up when I turn it on; the fan turns on, there's a little whirring from the hard disk, and then the fan just keeps on blowing...

It's not the battery, because I bought a new one and tried that.

What could be the problem, and can I fix it myself?

 

[warpus]

Does it beep?

 

[Beam]

What do you see on the screen?

 

[Brighteye]

Yes, it beeps. Not much else though. Nothing comes up on the screen, which rather huffily enters power-save mode.

I might add that this hasn't been entirely sudden; it did this for a bit last week, and yesterday for 45 minutes of off-an-on (while I cooked dinner too) before managing to start normally.
I'm not keen on 45 minutes of trial-and-fail every time I want to use it though.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Can you try booting from a CD or get into the BIOS? I've seen this problem before, it could be the Windows XP SP3/AMD processor issue.

If you're using Windows XP and an AMD processor, there's a problem with some computers and that, when it upgrades to SP3 and gets stuck. Because the manufacturers put both the Intel and AMD processors in, and the Intel ones kick in. This happened to an online friend of mine and she says the same thing happened. I don't know if the BIOS came up on hers.

If the BIOS isn't working, I'm not sure. Maybe your mobo is being weird.

 

[Brighteye]

The CD is far away in The Other Place. I'll try F2 next time it pretends to start, but I'm doubtful. It doesn't seem to get far enough to respond to anything.
I haven't upgraded to SP3 yet I think. I've had the updates waiting for a while but the two times I've had a look I either read the conditions and didn't like them, or didn't feel like reading through yet another set. I can't remember which.

 

[Beam]

Sounds like a dead or dying MoBo to me. Fan and HD make noise just because they get power. Much depends whether you can access the BIOS or not. If not you better prepare for a new purchase.

If you didn't see anything weird say yesterday when you were able to boot you might be able to recover valuable data if you can connect your current HDs to your new gear.

Not being asked but important to answer is if there were changes in your HW or OS config recently. Or anything else?

 

[warpus]

The number/type of beep(s) you hear when you turn on your PC should give you some hints. Look it up in your mobo documentation.

I would open up your case, see if anything's loose.. then unplug everything and see if it'll boot.. if it does - plug things in one by one

 

[Brighteye]

I sincerely hope that it's not the motherboard. It'll be expensive to replace. PC prices don't seem to have dropped as much as I had thought.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I'd recommend removing the HDD in case anything goes funky. Might also be a good idea to keep a fire extinguisher near. (Joking! Although the HDD thing is real.)

 

[Genocidicbunny]

By battery you mean the CMOS battery?
You may want to check the motherboard manual for the beep codes. often though, if its just a single beep it means it is booting fine. Id suggest you try another video card -- its possible the video card is dead. If the pc is networked, you may try to boot it up, give it some time and then check if its on your home network. This will only work as a test if it normally shows up on the network though.

 

[Brighteye]

Well, it fired up quite happily an hour ago or so (after a few tries), but I think it did that just to complain about not having a keyboard. I would have done something useful with the BIOS settings if I had a clue what to try, but I just let it start up and have removed all my favourite data.
It's been making some peculiar sounds as it transfers data, but it sounds very normal now it's just running the browser.

 

[ainwood]

Actually, motherboards are one of the cheapest components.

 

[Beam]

That maybe true for the Mobo as a component, yet how likely is you can use the other stuff from a 6 year old PC? I mean memory, CPU, graphics card. Even support for IDE is vanishing as SATA is the standard of the day.

 

[Cutlass]

You would have to search for a mobo that matched your other components. You could even try to search for the exact model you have. If you could find one of them it would be easier for you all the way around.

 

[Brighteye]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. It's still working at the moment, although it does make some peculiar whirrs now and again.
On starting up I now get a message telling me that floppy drive can't be found, so I press f1 to continue.

 

[ainwood]

That maybe true for the Mobo as a component, yet how likely is you can use the other stuff from a 6 year old PC? I mean memory, CPU, graphics card. Even support for IDE is vanishing as SATA is the standard of the day.

I just had this exact problem, because I fried an AMD socket 754 motherboard.

I did actually manage to find one. Apparently there is some market for old motherboards / components for use in multimedia PCs. It does mean that I could only find a micro-ATX board instead of a full-ATX board, but I got it for $NZ 49 (about US$ 25) - brand new, warranty included.

 

[GoodGame]

OPster wasn't in the process of updating (flashing) his BIOS and it was interrupted, was they?

That will scramble the BIOS chip and cause similar symptoms.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. It's still working at the moment, although it does make some peculiar whirrs now and again.
On starting up I now get a message telling me that floppy drive can't be found, so I press f1 to continue.

I wonder if that means it's searching for a drive with the OS.

 

[ainwood]

I wonder if that means it's searching for a drive with the OS.

Or it might be doing it in the boot order.

 

[lndm]

I would try unplugging and replugging all your internal connections. If this doesn't help then at least you can turn off 'floppy drive seek at boot' in the BIOS.