I'm sorry, the following is ReaLLY long, I've made it that way to make it as detailed as possible for you guys to try and find any warning signs.
Hi, I'm new to this forum. Found it while trying to find a similar problem to mine, which didnt really happen.
Let me start out with my Specs:
Windows XP
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
512 Mb Ram (damned if i know)
2.8Ghz Intel
Maxtor 80 Gb HD
450 psu
tw0 dvd drives + 1flopp
Time for the beginning of the story:
My computer had been running slowly, so I decided to go out and buy an Air Duster( Compressed air bottle). I did that, went home, sprayed in and around my case. Took out my video card sprayed that too since it was all dusty. Put it back in correctly
I then waited 10 minutes to turn it on, It came on perfectly. Startup was faster than ever, I started up the opera internet browser, limewire. I was downloading music videos and surfing the net all normally and stuff for around 5 hours.
Then I turn on an audioslave music vid put it fullscreen, have limewire + opera in the BG, watch it go around 30 seconds into the music video and then suddenly i hear a click. My computer turns off, monitor goes black, little green dot flashing near the monitor power button.
I then go "WTF?!?!~111" and press the power button thinking this was some random reboot. The PSU comes on, the fans come on through out the whole computer, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It's not over. The only other sign of life other than the humming of the fans is a click(Which i learned it happens each time that i turn on the computer).
I then proceed to do this many times, and the same thing happens every time.
I check the videocard connections, they seem to be fine. The power connections on the back, the monitor connection to the vid card... and so on. It just didnt seem right.
------- Take It apart time --------
I've built a few computers in my time and taking them apart is easy. I took out the video card, put it back in, retest the comp, same crap. The clicking comes from around the Hard Drive, so i took that out. Rebooted. Hey look its still looking dead. I think that I dont have enough power for some reason so then i unplug my dvd drives, my floppy drive and then plug in the HD again, boot it up...... nothing again.
I change the ram around, take out the HD, connect to another computer, it doesnt really do anything, but the computer actually shows signs of starting up! It says HEWLETT PACKARD, but then instead of booting up goes all black and shows a _ and keeps on making it flicker. I believe this to be normal since the HD is not really familiar to the system and has different settings and such.
Now I'm going to test another monitor to my machine and see if it works.
My conclusion is its one of these Five things:
Video card
Motherboard
Processor Chip
Hard Drive
PSU Must be dying?
Hi, I'm new to this forum. Found it while trying to find a similar problem to mine, which didnt really happen.
Let me start out with my Specs:
Windows XP
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
512 Mb Ram (damned if i know)
2.8Ghz Intel
Maxtor 80 Gb HD
450 psu
tw0 dvd drives + 1flopp
Time for the beginning of the story:
My computer had been running slowly, so I decided to go out and buy an Air Duster( Compressed air bottle). I did that, went home, sprayed in and around my case. Took out my video card sprayed that too since it was all dusty. Put it back in correctly
I then waited 10 minutes to turn it on, It came on perfectly. Startup was faster than ever, I started up the opera internet browser, limewire. I was downloading music videos and surfing the net all normally and stuff for around 5 hours.
Then I turn on an audioslave music vid put it fullscreen, have limewire + opera in the BG, watch it go around 30 seconds into the music video and then suddenly i hear a click. My computer turns off, monitor goes black, little green dot flashing near the monitor power button.
I then go "WTF?!?!~111" and press the power button thinking this was some random reboot. The PSU comes on, the fans come on through out the whole computer, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It's not over. The only other sign of life other than the humming of the fans is a click(Which i learned it happens each time that i turn on the computer).
I then proceed to do this many times, and the same thing happens every time.
I check the videocard connections, they seem to be fine. The power connections on the back, the monitor connection to the vid card... and so on. It just didnt seem right.
------- Take It apart time --------
I've built a few computers in my time and taking them apart is easy. I took out the video card, put it back in, retest the comp, same crap. The clicking comes from around the Hard Drive, so i took that out. Rebooted. Hey look its still looking dead. I think that I dont have enough power for some reason so then i unplug my dvd drives, my floppy drive and then plug in the HD again, boot it up...... nothing again.
I change the ram around, take out the HD, connect to another computer, it doesnt really do anything, but the computer actually shows signs of starting up! It says HEWLETT PACKARD, but then instead of booting up goes all black and shows a _ and keeps on making it flicker. I believe this to be normal since the HD is not really familiar to the system and has different settings and such.
Now I'm going to test another monitor to my machine and see if it works.
My conclusion is its one of these Five things:
Video card
Motherboard
Processor Chip
Hard Drive
PSU Must be dying?