PC not working.

[ItsMinJunLol]

Hi! My friend's pc stopped working. He has this 7-10 year old pc, and it recently stopped working. He told me that it sometimes will not work, and a few days later, it would start working. I tried to help him as much as I can't but I decided to ask the pros. He powers it on, nothing works. Display is on, but not showing (just black screen) and fans are spinning inside the case, and fans are connected to mobo. He has those post code speakers. It should normally beep and let him know what's wrong if something stops working, but it doesn't beep. Meaning that no hardware is broken / that speaker or mobo is broken. We're not sure if his display is broken too. I think it should say *No Signal* when it's a black screen but it's just black. Ask me for more information. How do we fix this? What is the problem? Thanks!

 

P. S. We tried cleaning the dust out.

[kingdomtim]

Make sure the wire that connects the pc to the monitor is plugged in properly. If it is, then I'm guessing it's just that the computer is getting old.

[FlushaDev]

4 minutes ago, ItsMinJunLol said:

Hi! My friend's pc stopped working. He has this 7-10 year old pc, and it recently stopped working. He told me that it sometimes will not work, and a few days later, it would start working. I tried to help him as much as I can't but I decided to ask the pros. He powers it on, nothing works. Display is on, but not showing (just black screen) and fans are spinning inside the case, and fans are connected to mobo. He has those post code speakers. It should normally beep and let him know what's wrong if something stops working, but it doesn't beep. Meaning that no hardware is broken / that speaker or mobo is broken. We're not sure if his display is broken too. I think it should say *No Signal* when it's a black screen but it's just black. Ask me for more information. How do we fix this? What is the problem? Thanks!

 

P. S. We tried cleaning the dust out.

Power Supply probably strugglin, try swapping it out with another one, see if that changes anything

[ItsMinJunLol]

1 minute ago, FlushaDev said:

Power Supply probably strugglin, try swapping it out with another one, see if that changes anything

ok.

 

4 minutes ago, kingdomtim said:

Make sure the wire that connects the pc to the monitor is plugged in properly. If it is, then I'm guessing it's just that the computer is getting old.

It's plugged in.

[another random person]

6 minutes ago, ItsMinJunLol said:

snip

 

The age of the system is a major factor when it comes to PC boot issues. If the display is active and is receiving a blank input then it might be the MOBO failing (assuming you don't have a GPU). There is also the chance it could be the PSU as those tend to be one of the first components to fail on a rig, failing PSUs supply unstable power to the components so it not booting up is a power safeguard preventing damage to the PC components. The speakers, not beeping could be due to the MOBO failing or the speakers themselves failing. 

 

Possible courses of action are: 

1. New Monitor cable 

2. Check all the connections inside the PC

3. Reseat ram

4. New PSU

5. New MOBO

6 New monitor

or ignore 4, 5, 6 and get a new PC. Building a new one isn't expensive. (probably more worth it)

[ItsMinJunLol]

3 minutes ago, another random person said:

The age of the system is a major factor when it comes to PC boot issues. If the display is active and is receiving a blank input then it might be the MOBO failing (assuming you don't have a GPU). There is also the chance it could be the PSU as those tend to be one of the first components to fail on a rig, failing PSUs supply unstable power to the components so it not booting up is a power safeguard preventing damage to the PC components. The speakers, not beeping could be due to the MOBO failing or the speakers themselves failing. 

 

Possible courses of action are: 

1. New Monitor cable 

2. Check all the connections inside the PC

3. Reseat ram

4. New PSU

5. New MOBO

6 New monitor

or ignore 4, 5, 6 and get a new PC. Building a new one isn't expensive. (probably more worth it)

Soo, he has a GPU. Can it be the GPU failing? Monitor cable is plugged in, and all cables are connected securely. How do you reset the ram?

[another random person]

Just now, ItsMinJunLol said:

Soo, he has a GPU. Can it be the GPU failing? Monitor cable is plugged in, and all cables are connected securely. How do you reset the ram?

Considering that, the GPU seems to now be the main suspect behind the issue. 

Try removing the GPU and using the integrated Graphics from the MOBO.

To reseat the ram, just remove the ram from the slots and then reinsert it. 

[OhadShwartzman]

2 minutes ago, ItsMinJunLol said:

Soo, he has a GPU. Can it be the GPU failing? Monitor cable is plugged in, and all cables are connected securely. How do you reset the ram?

Reseat, try to disconnect the ram physically, and put it in again, maybe it moved because of something

[ItsMinJunLol]

1 minute ago, another random person said:

Considering that, the GPU seems to now be the main suspect behind the issue. 

Try removing the GPU and using the integrated Graphics from the MOBO.

To reseat the ram, just remove the ram from the slots and then reinsert it. 

He has a Hybris CFX mobo, quite an old one. Does it have a IGPU?

He used to have 8 gb of ddr3 ram but one failed, so he took it out. Can this be it? (but that was a long time ago)

[another random person]

Just now, ItsMinJunLol said:

He has a Hybris CFX mobo, quite an old one. Does it have a IGPU?

He used to have 8 gb of ddr3 ram but one failed, so he took it out. Can this be it? (but that was a long time ago)

 

Every MOBO should have integrated graphics display ports, you can use the VGA on his MOBO to connect to the monitor. Make sure the GPU is unplugged and removed totally from the system. 

If he removed the ram ages ago and issues only started to happen now, then it most likely won't have any correlation at all. (there is a chance the second stick is failing too)

[ItsMinJunLol]

5 hours ago, another random person said:

Every MOBO should have integrated graphics display ports, you can use the VGA on his MOBO to connect to the monitor. Make sure the GPU is unplugged and removed totally from the system. 

If he removed the ram ages ago and issues only started to happen now, then it most likely won't have any correlation at all. (there is a chance the second stick is failing too)

Soo, he connected the VGA port to his mobo. Still nothing works. He told me monitor works. I'm not sure what's wrong now. Also, he currently has 150 USD(he's young) currently. If he needs replacement parts or new pc, it has to be real cheap...

[another random person]

2 minutes ago, ItsMinJunLol said:

Soo, he connected the VGA port to his mobo. Still nothing works. He told me monitor works. I'm not sure what's wrong now. Also, he currently has 150 USD(he's young) currently. If he needs replacement parts or new pc, it has to be real cheap...

 

Damn....

well 4 possible culprits now

1.Mobo

2.PSU

3.Ram 

4.CPU

 

listed in order from most likely to fail to least likely. 

[NeoFrux]

For a PC that old, I'd be inclined to check the capacitors on the motherboard itself. If you can't take pictures of the motherboard, you can reference what good vs bad capacitors look like over at Badcaps.net. If they all look good, though, then I'd try pulling absolutely everything but the CPU/fan and power connectors+PC speaker from the motherboard, then powering it on like that to see if there's a consistent beep code. If so, re-add one stick of RAM and test again.

 

Do you or your friend have a known-working PSU that could be swapped in for the current one to rule it out?