stivler

Hi Guy's, I will get to the point. I have a 6 - 7 year old Packard Bell PC with Windows XP media edition. The chip is an intel P4. Over the past few days it has stopped being a PC. When i switch it on, it doesn't do its POST check, in fact it just locks up with the f2, f8, f10 options at the bottom, none of which i can access. I can do this maybe twice but the third time i get no display, i can hear what may be the hard drive or the dvd whirring for a second, every 5 seconds or so but nothing else. I have reseated every component including the heatsink. I have removed network cards, tv cards and other non essential components. I have eradicated any dust from the fans. When i leave it for some time and come back, it may do the same or get a bit further, the last i tried, it told me that the cmos settings had been changed then it asked all about starting in safe mode but locked up again before i could access anything. I was thinking the processor was cooked but had read somewhere that it was almost impossible to do that to a P4. As i dont have spare parts lying around i cant just replace one at a time to find the faulty component. I know thats not alot of info but do you guys have any clues? Thank you in advance, Stephen.