Member Avatar for stot3

I'm sorta new at this thing. so here goes


I recently upgraded an old comp of mine to a 3.2 gig processor,150 gig hard drive, 512 memory stick. It has 2 cdroms on it (one burner and one reader). I installed xp on it and it ran well for about a month. Now it will suddenly not boot.


The intersting thing is the cpu cooling fan. Now sometime it cuts on and stays on. But sometime it will barely turn. Now if i'm correct I heared if it get's too hot it will shut off the computer. That's why I am not worried to much about the processor.

Note: the computer will not post even with the hard drive disconnected.


any ideas. Any help would be most apreciated

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jitterson

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A short, practical roadmap for a machine that fails to POST. Thread participants , and raised power and cooling concerns; the next diagnostics should focus on board- and memory-level faults that are often missed and are safe to try before buying parts.

  • Safety first: unplug mains and ground yourself. Work on a non-conductive surface and keep a notebook or photo of connector positions.
  • Visual check: inspect the motherboard closely for bulging or leaking capacitors, scorch marks, or broken solder joints. A burnt smell or swollen caps points to board failure.
  • Listen for POST codes: connect a tiny system speaker to the motherboard header and note beep patterns. Use a POST-beep reference to interpret results.
  • CMOS reset: clear the BIOS using the clear-jumper or by removing the coin cell for several minutes, then retry. This rules out bad settings.
  • Memory and seating: reseat every DIMM and test one known-good stick in the primary slot, then swap slots. Bad or incorrectly seated RAM commonly prevents POST.
  • Power and front-panel checks: verify the 24-pin and CPU 4/8-pin power plugs are firmly seated and try shorting the power-switch pins briefly (only if comfortable) to rule out a faulty case switch.
  • Bench test: remove the board from the case and power it with the CPU, one RAM stick, PSU and speaker only. This eliminates shorts from misplaced standoffs or front-panel wiring.
  • When to stop: if no beeps, no diagnostic LEDs, and visual inspection shows VRM damage or damaged capacitors, the motherboard (or rarely the CPU) is likely the failing part and professional repair or replacement is the next step.

For beep-code decoding and safe CMOS reset steps see the POST reference at Computer Hope and the BIOS reset guide at . If any step is unclear or you find physical damage, consult a technician before applying more power.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

could be a power problem ,not getting enough power will cause this ,can you try another power supply,as for the overheating if there are settings in bios to shut down when it overheats it will shut down ,if not it will fry cpu before it shuts down !!

Member Avatar for stot3

ok I tried another power supply and I stil got the same result

Member Avatar for stot3

I wonder what could be the problem

Member Avatar for caperjack

Now if i'm correct I heared if it get's too hot it will shut off the computer. That's why I am not worried to much about the processor.

well you should be worried ,if you have been running it without a fan you may have fried the chip ,hard to say excatually what is wrong ,i suggest getting a computer repair tech to look at it for you

Member Avatar for jitterson

You better change your processor FAN, if you don't then the
3.2 processor will die soon because of heat. After that if you
PC still not booting up you have to re-install you XP operationg system

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