help its dead

[cway]

hi guys

im a complete novice on pcs,,but mine wont start up at all. all the connections are ok i have taken the back off the pc and the fan is running all the time dontknow if that os normal or not

its making a clicking noise to hope you can help me

thanks

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi cway

 

Welcome to FPCH

 

Do you mean the pc does not start at all or windows does not start?

 

Can you see the post/bios screen on boot up?

[cway]

the pc wont start at all no screen messages /blue screen

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Have you done any hardware changes recently cway, have you cleaned out any accumulated dust from the pc?

 

Disconnect the hard drive, make sure the monitor connector is firmly connected and the graphics card also if not using on board video.

 

Make sure all memory sticks are secure too.

 

Tell us if it boots now, if it does you will get an error saying something like Primary hard disk not found etc.

 

Get back to us.

[cway]

no hardware changes have been made,,,yeah cleaned it out last week dust etc thats when it started to go wrong,,,just tried all the things you said still no joy

[Guest Wolfeymole]

It sounds like your PSU has died cway, the fan in it may be spinning but the unit may not be supplying enough voltage to the board and other items.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Were you having problems before this?

[cway]

ok sorry for sounding daft but what is a psu and is it fixable.can i recover the pics and things from the drive

[cway]

no problems before this was working fine

[Guest Wolfeymole]

ok sorry for sounding daft but what is a psu and is it fixable.can i recover the pics and things from the drive

 

A PSU is a Power Supply Unit, it's what the lead from the wall plugs into. It then reduces voltages to the requirements of the board and other aspects.

 

All is not lost though as you can hook the hard disk drive to another computer as Slave if the drive is an IDE or just connect it via a SATA cable if this is the case.

 

You can then recover your files and pics etc.

[cway]

ok thanks a lot i will try to connect the hard drive to recover the files

thanks for you help

[Guest Wolfeymole]

PSU's are not worth fixing once they have died and sometimes when they do go they take the board with them.

 

How old is your pc?

[cway]

its about 5 years old just hope i can get my files off the hard drive

[Guest Wolfeymole]

5 years old eh?

 

I'll more or less guarantee that it's an IDE drive in which case you need to set the little tiny piece of plastic at the back of the hard drive (this is called a Jumper) to Slave when connecting to another pc.

 

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z144/Wolfeymoles-Pics/FPCH%20files/harddrive.jpg

 

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z144/Wolfeymoles-Pics/FPCH%20files/jumpers.jpg

[cway]

from the picture and looking at the back of the hard drive its pic number 4 that is the same as mine with the plastic tag in the pins

[Guest Wolfeymole]

With regard to the first picture what does your your drive say for the jumper arrangement to be used as a Slave drive?

[cway]

it says j48 and j46 ds slave or spare

[Guest Wolfeymole]

What make is the hard drive cway?

[cway]

its a maxtor

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Position the jumper as shown in this pic.

[cway]

set the jumper to slave yes

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok, hook it up to another machine with the IDE cable and the jumper in that position.

[cway]

ok i will have to take it to friends house to try it i wiil get back to you asap

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok cway please do and let us know what happened.

[Dalo Harkin]

Also make sure that you plug it into the middle connector of the IDE cable - If your friend has an HDD and a CDRW/DVDRW his HDD is probably set as the master and the CDRW/DVDRW the slave - if it is the other way round he will have to change his setup.

Or hope that his Motherboard has 2 IDE spaces on the MOBO for cables.

and then you can just plug yours into the middle one and leave the MASTER one blank.