Re: Dead PC - help please !

"Adrian" <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4h457eF1ppsp0U2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
HI Steve

SteveH wrote:
"Adrian" <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4h3p1dF1pdrn4U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi All

The header says it all,really !
Saturday night - pc was running fine, Sunday morning it was sat there
with both front-panel lights full on (hdd & ?power?) - and completely
unresponsive to any stimuli (keyboard, mouse, front panel on-off switch.

Could only turn it off by pulling the mains lead.
Put mains lead back in, front panel switch turned it back on again - but
only to the same state as before. No drives spinning, front panel lights
hard on, two red leds on the motherboard, fans spinning, no post......

PC was branded i-Friend - sent their support a couple of emails and
phoned their helpline - no response - wonder if they've gone bust ?

Spec-wise it's a EVE2 C2714R - micro-atx motherboard, Celeron 1.7, fair
bit of ram. Nothing fancy by today's standards - but a lot better than
the pII it replaced !

Further diagnosis showed that one of the power supply fans was seized
solid - so, on a wild hope <g>, I purchased and installed a new PSU.
(The machine has had two replacement PSUs under guarantee before - so I
though there might be something in this theory...

Now the new PSU is very nice, but it doesn't change the symptoms one
tiny bit.....

Have also tried the 'unplug everything' approach, down to a bare
motherboard with Celeron, but this makes no difference.

So - at the moment, I have three possible strategies (further
suggestions welcome!)

a) Buy a motherboard 'bundle' (e.g. Celeron 336 2.8Ghz - 512mb - Micro
ATX from Novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html) on
the grounds that I can simply drop the whole lot in and it should fly -
about £100 inc vat

b) buy a series of new parts (uP, motherboard, ?memory?) and simply
replace bits until it starts to work - could be several parcels /
delivery charges etc

c) Bin the whole thing and buy a cheapie replacement system unit and
transplant the old hdd to the new unit.


I'm confident around electronics, just a bit baffle by the wide range of
bits & pieces available now - which is why the 'bundle' approach
appeals..

My diagnosis of 'motherboard or uP' - sounds about right to you ??

Many thanks - sorry it's such a long posting
Adrian
Suffolk UK

If it does turn out to be the mobo, don't just assume you can drop your
old HDD onto a new mobo and have it all work, especially if you are
running XP or 2000. It may work, or you will need to do a repair install.
TBH, if you are replacing the mobo with a different one, your best bet
will be a clean install.


Oh - right - hadn't thought of that. The o/s is WinXP Home - I do have the
'restore' disks but it didn't come with the full install disk.

Would the 'restore' disks be likely to do the job ??

Thanks
Adrian

No, the restore disks would like be set up only to restore your existing PC
and reinstall all the correct drivers etc for for current setup. You would
need a XP home disk (I think you'll be OK regarding licencing as you already
have a copy of XP) and reinstall from that.

Cheers
SteveH


.

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