RIP my PC

[Don S]

My PC died this morning. Should I invest in another desktop or wait for the new series of intel macs?
Also - Can anyone reccommend a PC guy to possibly repair this unit in the North Jersey area?

Don

[manning1]

a better description than it died would help.
is it booting up at all ?? do you hear clicking or beeps from it at boot up ??
is the cpu fan turning over ?? do you see any black screen with mem check ??
it might just be a new 40 buk power supply thats needed.
more info please....peace.

[Don S]

Hi Manning!

The motherboard is getting power, the green light is lights up. (asus board). But the fan only turns on for a few seconds, makes a whining sound then the whole thing goes black. Never gets even close to booting. It was on for a few minutes this morning, made a high pitched whine and is the state is in now.
If it was the power supply, would the board still get power?

Don

[George Necola]

could be:

- bad Ram
- bad connection because of dust (just deconnect everything, clean the inside and get the parts back)
- your harddisk has died completly (but that not common)
- your motherboard is just right from self execution..

how old is this certain PC?

I can recommend the new intel-ibook.. XP is running stress-free with Bootcamp Beta on the intel-mac, but its as slow as on PC and multitasking doesnt work their either. and of course, driverproblems all the way..

cheers George

[manning1]

don....
it could be a number of things. as george said.
i would get a pc tech to look at it asap.
it might be something easily/low cost fixed but might not.
you mentioned whining....if you hear the disc drive whining it might be a drive gone bad.

[rockcamaro97]

simple answer... yank your HD and ship me your PC and build another

Hope u get your problems figured out!

Matt

[theblue1]

As suggested above, the power supply would be one of the first places I would look for problems given the symptoms.

You say the fan quits -- is that the power supply fan or a CPU fan or... ?

[dingo]

Originally Posted by Don S

The motherboard is getting power, the green light is lights up. (asus board). But the fan only turns on for a few seconds, makes a whining sound then the whole thing goes black. Never gets even close to booting. It was on for a few minutes this morning, made a high pitched whine and is the state is in now.
If it was the power supply, would the board still get power?

It's possible. I recently worked on a machine that would still boot occasionally, but most of the time it did exactly what you're describing.. except for the high-pitched whine, which may or may not be specifically related to your boot problem.

George and Manning have covered most of the typical causes of what you're seeing. Most frequently, I find this related to ram or a card not seated, data cables on PATA drives not seated (or reversed), and dying power supplies.

Feel like doing some trobleshooting? Got a parts donor?

[DAWgEAR]

RIP my PC?????

One component of many has likely failed. I wouldn't write off the whole PC! Narrow it down and replace that one component. Then you are back in business.

Sounds like a bad power supply. Do you have access to another PSU whith which to to test?

Other possible culprits:

Bad motherboard.

Possible CPU overheating? Some motherboards will shut the system down if the CPU exceeds a threshold temp. You mention a whining fan but don't mention which fan. Case fan or CPU heatsink fan? If the CPU heatsink fan has gone bad, that might be the culprit. That's the cheapest to replace.

[Don S]

Hello Slutz

Thanks for the info and support. I noticed a burning smell after just a couple seconds (thats all it would stay on!) and lfollowed my nose to the power supply. I ordered another from new egg.
Can I replace this myself? It looks fairly easy, or should I pay a "geek"

[T.RayBullard]

Originally Posted by Don S

Hello Slutz

Thanks for the info and support. I noticed a burning smell after just a couple seconds (thats all it would stay on!) and lfollowed my nose to the power supply. I ordered another from new egg.
Can I replace this myself? It looks fairly easy, or should I pay a "geek"

It is easy, Mr. S. Put it in the chassis, and plug the cables from the optical and HDs into it...simple. itll take maybe 5-10 minutes tops.

[dingo]

Depending upon how the chassis was designed, replacing the PSU can be quick and painless.. or not. But either way, it won't be a difficult operation. Be careful of the molex connectors on the hard drives, though. It's not too difficult to snap the connector off (along with a chunk of PCB) if you get too aggressive.

[Don S]

Thanks for the advice - I put a new supply in and so far it's back to normal!
I went with an Antec 480 watt.

[catfish11]

will you buy ME the the mac-intel now, instead???
that would satisfy your need to spend money, and I will be your friend, too.