TSGL: Computer dead?

[Tilman Brandl]

Hi Heidi,

my main PC is about the same age, with XP too ...... Difficult to tell what's wrong from a distance with not too many details to go on. Sounds like your son had set up an 'overclocking' test site (my son did all these things too)    ;-) 

Given that the power supply unit is fine, these are my ideas:
I Check video card - making sure it's ok: 
    1- Try to install in a different (known good) machine. This way you can find out whether it's been hosed or not. If it's dead, swap it for a good one.
    2- install & run a known good video card in your son's PC. Either the old card after checking, or a new one.
    3- Just to be sure - check the monitor, either with a different one attached to his PC, or with attaching his monitor to a good+working machine.
            Result: You've got a working video card + monitor attached to this machine!

II System not booting. My guess is that his system has been shot somehow. Probably software only, but maybe also hardware - some shortcircuit or such ...
    0- try to boot and run in save mode; although, you may have told us the machine doesn't boot at all ...?
    1- Get a Bart PE or other PE CD which would allow to boot up and afterwards check the machine thoroughly . This would show you whether the machine's hardware basically is fine. If corrupt, it wouldn't bootup/start from such a CD
    2- If it was a pre-installed system, try to run the restore from the CD that came with the PC, if there was any  *)
    3- if it was not, insert an original XP CD and try a repair install (non-destructive) http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/personaltech/189500364
    4- with 3 not working, reinstall XP from scratch   *)

*) Both methods will destroy all data on the system HD or partition. Therefore try to save any data on the affected HD by e.g. moving the HD into a different machine temporarily and copying away any important stuff (not the XP system).

That's all for now....

Schöne Grüsse von Wien nach Berlin
Tilman

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Computerfee 
  To: TSGL 
  Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 9:38 AM
  Subject: TSGL: Computer dead?


  Hi there everybody,

  my son just "lost" his computer - as usual when I am asking something, I 
  don't
  know many details but want to ask before anyway as I know you guys usually
  can come up with some idea. It is definitely a 3 years old Windows XP
  machine. My son wanted to get it working a bit quicker and therefore tried a
  lot of things that have helped a lot already - last now was that he
  uninstalled something I never heard of but it was a kind of accelerator for
  the video card or video card driver. When he was asked to re-start the
  computer to make the change work, he saw the program (or whatever it
  actually is) was still there and in a minute of unconsciousness clicked on
  it. Afterwards all went dead now - don't recall whether he said the computer
  shut down correctly or not then, but at least he could not restart it. Once
  it worked as if it was starting, you could hear the fans working but nothing
  visible happened and no beeps either but afterwards then obviously nothing
  does happen when he presses the start button. My first guess was something
  might be wrong with the video card of course but he told me some reason why
  it could not be that - probably the missing beeps - and he was sure it was
  the power supply unit, so went to have it checked in a shop and it was okay
  and he came here and tried it in another computer where it did work
  perfectly. Then he went home again and I told him no matter what he thinks
  to try to take out the video card -which I hope he did- but nothing did
  change, no beeps, and no booting computer.

  So what could be the problem, what could he try out to solve the problem.
  You know, it always is a problem with this youngster, he always knows better
  and right now he knows the computer is not fixable while I will try until I
  don't know what makes me really sure nothing can't be done.
  Hope you can come up with an idea or two!

  Have a nice day
  Heidi from Berlin