PC Problem! Any ideas?

[mjbailey21 10+ year member]

Hello,

My friend called me with a pc problem.

It is one he built himself. AMD 3000+ with an Asus a7n8x-e mother board, WD 160GB SATA HD, DVD-rom, 52xCDRW, Antec 300w PSU w/ antec case. Also, SB Platinum EX.

It has worked fine for a year or two but suddenly it stopped working. It powers up but I can hear the CPU fan struggling (it seems to speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, etc, for the first few minutes of boot up). The monitor doesn't receive any signals either.

He does not know how this happened. He basically told me it happened randomly when he tried to boot up his PC.

He runs spyware programs/antivirus constantly. Any help would be great.

Thanks,

Matthew

You can catch me on AIM at mattbailey21 if you'd rather do that.

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[Apollyon 10+ year member]

Sounds like the cpu fan is going out.

 

[xxx.x dB 10+ year member]

It could be a dead motherboard?? cause I've had a few motherboards that have had the same problems you described abouve.

 

[mjbailey21 10+ year member]

bump! looking into everything. any other ideas?

 

[AllStar1500bd 5,000+ posts]

Video card?

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

sounds like vid card... its normal for a cpu fan to cycle like that, but make sure to watch the temp... or just replace the fan, theyre cheap

 

[skeptikal Premium Member]

could be processor overheating, mobo's going bad, PSU could be bad, vid card, the ram....

does the computer beep when it boots up? like constantly... beep, beep, beep

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

if he is getting no video...im tihnking mobo or vid card...if it was just the CPU overheating seems like you would get some video..might not make it all the way thru post...but something...

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

I say power supply or motherboard. Disconnect all peripherals & expansion cards except video/monitor & keyboard & try.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Hello,
My friend called me with a pc problem.

It is one he built himself. AMD 3000+ with an Asus a7n8x-e mother board, WD 160GB SATA HD, DVD-rom, 52xCDRW, Antec 300w PSU w/ antec case. Also, SB Platinum EX.

It has worked fine for a year or two but suddenly it stopped working. It powers up but I can hear the CPU fan struggling (it seems to speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down, etc, for the first few minutes of boot up). The monitor doesn't receive any signals either.

He does not know how this happened. He basically told me it happened randomly when he tried to boot up his PC.

He runs spyware programs/antivirus constantly. Any help would be great.

Thanks,

Matthew

You can catch me on AIM at mattbailey21 if you'd rather do that.

ok here's how to troubleshoot this:

Unplug all the PCI cards, leave only a vid card, ram, and processor. Also unplug all the IDE cables and the floppy cable. Try booting, if you are still getting the same problem you have it narrowed down to those. Next unseat and reseat each of those components. Having a card or processor not making full contact will do crazy things. With everything reseated and still not working you'll need to get ahold of spare parts to swap in to test which is the problem. If you are getting no beeps then it's most likely the MB/CPU. You'd get beeps (assuming there is an internal speaker hooked up) for ram and video problems.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

He runs spyware programs/antivirus constantly. Any help would be great.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif sorry this is my pet peave... those are nice and all but have NOTHING to do with most problems. Spyware programs are way more important then virus ones and you basically have to do something very stupid to get a virus. In anycase this is a hardware problem and it has nothing to do with viruses or spyware.

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

Ever heard of BIOS patching? I doubt it's the culprit, but patching the BIOS & reflashing it does exist, of course only the hardcore hackers mess with this stuff.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Ever heard of BIOS patching? I doubt it's the culprit, but patching the BIOS & reflashing it does exist, of course only the hardcore hackers mess with this stuff.

yah lots of things are possible but it's safe to just ignore viruii as a culprit... and most hardcore "hackers" concentrate of physical access and duping stupid people than l33t interweb haxing skillz...

besides you'd have to replace the MB to fix that so it's no diff on fixing it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif