hey everyone
i got a aluminum case computer (big, bulky, and boxy) i got from a friend that said the hardrive crashed. so he had it in his warehouse for six month and it collected more dust and who knows what then i could imagine. i was amazed when i cleaned it i mean there was so much crap in it the power supply box was full. but i got it all clean. well plugged everything into it started it up and the video card so i went down to best buy or one of them stores and bought a e-geforce fx 5500 video card put it in started the comp up and it worked just fine well there was something else wrong with the computer cause it kept restarting and now i believe the motherboard fried because its never good to see smoke comeing off the board. this idc cause i want to replace everything in it cause i need a new computer bad. this one has a via p4pa-ul mother board with 3 256 ddr dimm,k ram, it has maxtor diamondmax plus 9 120 gb harddrive, and the pentium 4 chip. idk why this person had three sound cards but he had one built on the motherboard, one philips card, and one sound blaster audigy 2 z5 with the i guess the reciever in the front the remotes missing. can anyone sugest what to put in it and where to get them as cheap as possiable.
thank you
hey everyone
i got a aluminum case computer (big, bulky, and boxy) i got from a friend that said the hardrive crashed. so he had it in his warehouse for six month and it collected more dust and who knows what then i could imagine. i was amazed when i cleaned it i mean there was so much crap in it the power supply box was full. but i got it all clean. well plugged everything into it started it up and the video card so i went down to best buy or one of them stores and bought a e-geforce fx 5500 video card put it in started the comp up and it worked just fine well there was something else wrong with the computer cause it kept restarting and now i believe the motherboard fried because its never good to see smoke comeing off the board. this idc cause i want to replace everything in it cause i need a new computer bad. this one has a via p4pa-ul mother board with 3 256 ddr dimm,k ram, it has maxtor diamondmax plus 9 120 gb harddrive, and the pentium 4 chip. idk why this person had three sound cards but he had one built on the motherboard, one philips card, and one sound blaster audigy 2 z5 with the i guess the reciever in the front the remotes missing. can anyone sugest what to put in it and where to get them as cheap as possiable.
thank you
Ok, wow. First of all, periods are essential to sentences. :) Secondly, do you want to fix the computer or completely rebuild it? If you want to fix it, give us information such as where in the boot process the computer restarts, what OS you are using, and any error messages.. If you want to completely rebuild it then I suggest buying new parts from newegg.com. The hd, graphics card, and maybe sound cards are the only components that you should keep. (Processor, maybe..)
well idk what to do anymore because before it would start up and restart every 30 then 20 then 10 mins. but then if u left alone for a week or so it would redo those steps. well now im afraid its completely dead. becaue one i saw smoke comeing off the board secondly now it wont do anything it wont start the monitor(sp) it wont turn the lights on the keyboard, and also a new thing the harddrive light stays on. this computer has an invalid version of windows xp i found that out by trying to put win xp service pack 2 on it :). which was really nice other then that idk anything about this comp cause it was given to me as a project. also srry about the grammer on the first post i was in a hurry and i was trying to take the comp apart to get all the names of the pieces.
you didnt do something silly like run the CPU without proper cooling?
nope there are 6 fans in it and i have four running. one on the chip, one on the power supply, one on the video card, and one that sits on the bottom but is suppose to clip into the front and ive been just lazzy and havent put it back or even know if goes back on there. the other two are, one is on side plate, and the other is attached to the back which these two are going out so i just unplugged them untill i get new ones. also when it was turning on there is a program on it that tells u the voltage and the temp of the cpu and the houseing. which these always ran about 90 to 102 degrees.
Well, if the mb was smoking that is definitely bad lol.. Probably some dirt clogged the fans or something.. but yea, if the motherboard was seen smoking then you have probably done some unrecoverable damage to it. You say it just restarts 10 minutes or so after boot? Another symptom of a heating problem.. I suggest that you closely examine every part of the pc including the fans and air circulation.. There is most definitely a heating problem.
well maybe the guy who had it before had a overheating problem but like i said that program always read between 90 and 102 degrees(sp). but also that smoke only came after repluging in the strip from the cd rom to the mb and thats the area it was smokeing and the wierd thing is is that i took it all off after that and i didnt find any burn marks. well im guessing i probly just rebuild it. also those sound cards i dont have the software for those could i get them?
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