For all of us undertaking A+, lets do some work together...

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yeah i realised i missed most of thread

reading now

 

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There is another thing people forget to check the plug that goes into the wall, is the red light shoing on the back of the computer of the power supply etc or you never know that the fuse is gone.

 

now i read most of thread sounds more like mobo/cpu to me

got a post card handy?


i gather you tested reset switch etc

 

i think he tested that.

Also a blown fuse wouldn't cause intermittent problems

 

Hello you all.

First of all I'd like to say thanks to everybody who contributed for this post as every single post was somehow helpful especially the reset CMOS one.

After resetting the CMOS I did get image on the screen and booted all the way to the vista home basic OS.
The booting process was very very very slow.

I can honestly say, or so I think, that my problem lies in the motherboard only.

The reason that lets me think this is that twice I have managed to get to the OS and out of nowhere it just dies on me, reset CMOS again and it wakes up and boots up and then again it dies on me.

After all this I think it is quite reasonable to say that my only problem is the motherboard and that booth the CPU and the memory are working fine, no?

What are your opinions about it guys?

Cheers to all of you,
Albert, C

 

It's very hard to accurately diagnose a fault that could be the motherboard or CPU. Really the only way is by replacing one of the components. ie a process of elimination.

However, in my experience the motherboard is more commonly the culprit. As has been mentioned in this thread already, have you visually checked the electrolytic capacitors, these are small cylindrical components (akin to coke cans)? They should not be bulging or leaking brown gunk. if they are, then your motherboard is suffering from a common problem now known as capacitor plague.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

I have seen many many MOBOs suffering from this and have in the past replaced all the capacitors with some degree of success. Having said that it is a job for a person with a good deal of experience in the electronics field.

I jumped on your comment that this was *straightforward and easy* because i am yet to encounter a problem with a computer that can be defined as such. In fact, almost every box i see, has a different problem and the diagnoses can be difficult. This isn't an industry where a library of *stock faults* will enable you to quickly fix every PC within a few minutes. trust me on that

Good luck!

 

If you know your bios settings off by heart you can input the settings by yourself in the menu and see if there is any difference in the boot process speed.

I would expect some slow down during the boot process if i left everything on default settings.

For instance if i went to my bios menu just now and changed everything to defaults ,and then tried to get back into windows the process would definetely be slower,windows itself would start discovering new items,looking for drivers and so on and acpi settings would be enabled too,i've got them disabled just now.

Personally i would look a lot at the reasons for the slow down and try to figure that out.

I wouldn't rule out that the motherboard may well be damaged.

 

Mobo and cpu faults on many occasions from my own experiance (15 years) can be difficult to tell apart.

Many a time i have wished for a device that i could plug-in as a CPU to test mother board.

would have save myself a few pennies! lets face it CPUs now a days aren't FRU's

 

...they're not?

 

The faulty cpus i have seen,must be more than 20 in total,if it's burnt out and dead there would be no chance of reaching windows.

Out of interest have you seen varieties of processor faults,any where the computer actually powers on and boots?

 

Hello mate.
The post itself takes like 5 minutes and then another 5 to load windows vista.
I have managed to get into the BIOS settings and changed them to defaults and have also change and switch off allot of stuff that I don't want in order to speed booting time but it's the same all round.
Everything is coming together and points to just the motherboard being faulty.
Even the CPU cooler when it powers up it's almost as it don't want to run and the it goes, I know we have all those smart fan settings on CMOS but even those have been switch off so the fan should turn on at full power straight off and it doesn't, it's almost as if there isn't enough juice (power) flowing trough the motherboard, that's the feeling that I get.

 

I doubt that lack of voltage would cause a slow down.. things tend to either work or not, as most of the electrickery is switching circuits, ie either on states or off.

A slow down seems like a clock problem. not the system time clock but something else.

Can you load *optimum* bios settings rather than defaults?

 

This may sound a bit silly but try using compressed air on all the fans even the heatsink fan.

Also does the BIOS show the temperature of the cpu if is above 60 degrees c then I would do the following

Take the heatsink of and remove the cpu, theck all the pins are ok. Next remove the thermal paste of the cpu and heatsink reapply some fresh paste on the cpu then reattach everything and see if you get anything different.

EDIT: make sure you are taking appropriate ESD precautions when working inside a computer, even the slightest static discharge from your body is enough to destroy electrical circurtry.

 

I must admit I didn't see anything about reaching windows. sorry

But i was referring to a dead system ... however, as you asked....

Yes, several times when i worked for repair center. Last one which i owned that did this was a p3 sec-2 package that had a intermittent fault and resulted in BSOD's. I think it was partially the logic on the chip to stop overheating, I have heard of on chip diodes been damaged as well. oh yeah also, on dye, cache can also have intermittent faults just like another ram

Actually come to think of it sometimes that p3 didn't start.

 

Do you upload any videos to youtube ?
A small mobile phone video or digital camera video of the first few minutes of the pc being switched on may tell a lot.

I can't work it out myself at the moment,i know one way to totally slow down a pc is to switch off the cpu cache in the bios,then the pc will crawl along and will take 10 minutes to load,but by default the processor cache is switched on.

The cpu fan spinning slowly or randomly is very strange,i know with all the faults i've seen the processor fan runs smoothly and normally however badly the pc is damaged,even after a power surge the cpu fan was spinning perfectly.

If i got windows running for 30 minutes i would do a scan disk of the hard drive,is the pc still switching off within windows after a short space of time?

 

CPUs can be faulty this is why I suggested cleaning of the TIM and checking the pins, also check the top of the cpu (where the TIM goes to check for inconsistency (scratches/dents) in it.

As for the fan it could be a build up of dust/dirt.

 

okay thanks for the reply,it's just i haven't seen it myself,all the cpus i've seen that were faulty failed to boot or reach windows.

 

Of course they are FRU's

What i meant was how many companies have you worked for that provided you with a whole range of expensive cpus to carry around. I worked for companies that wont even let you carry ram around you had to take it back to workshop

 

Wish someone had explained this to my old college lecturer, I wouldn't have spent User Support lectures banging my head against a table quite so much.

As to the problem in hand, I've seen nothing yet to suggest you've done a full visual check of the mobo components aas ahs been suggested albertc30, is that right?

What make and model of mobo are we talking about? and what model cpu?