Alright, I'm posting this for a friend who's pc is dead and needs some help. He's got an older HP with windows XP probably around 99 or so? His monitor works fine but when he tries to start up the pc nothing happens. In the back youll see the green light on the power supply light up then just go out and nothing at all appears on screen. It finishes it's little "shananigans" in a couple of seconds and the only way you can tell the computer is even trying to start is that you hear the little "crackling" noise you get when you start your computer up and the speakers are on. I assumed it was a power supply problem but im not completely sure. Some help please!!!
UnEarth913 0 Newbie Poster
Catweazle 140 Grandad Team Colleague
Hi,
I've posted standard troubleshooting procedures in the pinned "Read this first" topic at top of page. Stripping a system back to basics and systematically trying it out by adding components back in one by one is the only surefire way of identifying where the problem lies.
Any other advice, based on the information you've provided, can be nothing other than guessing.
If the system will not POST with only processor, a functional RAM module and the display circuitry installed then you have a motherboard, processor or power supply unit problem, and unless you have spare components to swap in and out only a technician can truly identify which of those is causing the failure to POST.
UnEarth913 0 Newbie Poster
i already read it but nothing really applied. as for information provided thats all i can really give you. he doesnt know anything about pc's or anything really so he didnt add anything inside or install any new software. the PC doesnt even begin to load windows or anything. you plug it in and it begins to start up for honestly about a second at most and then shuts right back off.
Catweazle 140 Grandad Team Colleague
Then your problem isn't a 'dead machine' one. If Windows begins to load and then stops loading then your problem is a Windows installation one.
Try a 'refresh' install:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxp
and if that doesn't correct the Windows loading problems then do a format/fresh install. In that latter case, if there's only a single hard drive and there's important data files on it, replace the hard drive with a new one, install a clean installation of Windows onto the new drive to get the system going, and then add the original drive in later as a secondary hard drive so that the data files can be retrieved. That's the simplest approach to take, and it's an inexpensive one because new hard drives are quite inexpensive and extra data storage capacity is always a useful thing to have :D
Be a part of the DaniWeb community
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.