can anyone help please?

[phil_88]

right so what it is, my old mans pc stopped working the other day it kept freezing on the startup screen, so what he did was take of the side and pull all the wires out and put em back in, when he put em back in he cudnt get the pc to power up at all no lights nothing seems dead to me, i aint no tech wizard but i know a little bit about computers and stuff so i redid what he did pulled all the wires out made sure they all went back in the proper sockets etc they are alll wired up ok now but he had removed the heatsink from the cpu and put it back on, no this heatsink has thermal tape underneath where thhey usually have paste, and when he took off the heatsink it broke the thermal tape, could this be the reason it is not firing up when i power it on, it just seems dead, no lights no fan nothing, im gonna try changing the power ppack in a bit but wanted to know if the cpu heatsink could be the problem so i know to take my thermal paste?

[Mickha]

When he pulled the wires out could he have dislodged the connectors from the case to the motherboard?
It sounds like the PSU, these are usually the culprit and very easy to check.
Usually when the PSU fails part of it still works, so you could still have power going to the DVD drive, so the tray will open, but not to the Motherboard.
Check the mains lead to see if a fuse has blown.
CPU's are quite resilient and usually the PC will shut off before the CPU gets damaged.

[cable man]

Yep the PSU, Can you take a few pics of the inside so we can see if its set up ok??

[unadkat]

what mickha has stated above is correct in regards to the CPU and heatsink.

The best forward I would say is that test that power supply in another machine and see if the other machine fires up. (This is if you have a spare machine that is)

or

Short out pins 15 and 16 on the 24-pin motherboard power connector with a small piece of wire.

Have a look @ this to determine the Pins: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/inside...in-12v-psu.htm

Sounds like a PSU issue from what you have stated above. It would not be because the you not have not applied the Thermal paste, as all that would do is cause a over heating issue, however the machine would power up and POST (power on self test)


if the issue is not the PSU then most likely you have killed the mobo mate.

What you can also try is this: you see the 4 pin connector which powers up the CPU.. Don't plug that in and just plug the ATX connector (just in-case u don't know what that is: well they are a 20 - 24 connector on the PSU) and see if the PSU powers up. If it doesn't power up then its the PSU that needs replacing.

[Ian69]

Just Google, psu paperclip test. that will tell you if the psu is dead

[georgefooty]

Originally Posted by Ian69

Just Google, psu paperclip test. that will tell you if the psu is dead

thats it right there

[phil_88]

right sorry it took so long to get back, ive got his pc firing up again now, changed the psu but now he is back to his old problem, the pc just freezes at his acer screen, there is options to press f2 and f12 but nothing happens ive tried 3 different keyboards 2 ps2 and a usb, so i looked a bit further into it, changed the bios battery still nothing, reset the bios with the jumper, still nothing, disconnected everything but te psu, mobo and the ram and cpu, still nothing, ive not got anything running in it thru usb to make it freeze, so taking a further look thru the internet i saw that it might be a hard drive issue as the red cylinder like light on the front of the tower next to the power light was on constant, so i got him to buy a new hard drive, fitted it yesterday and still nothing anyone know whats up

[Mickha]

Is this a boot up splash screen that obscures the listing of the boot up procedure or is it later when trying to boot into the operating system?

If it's at the beginning forget the hard drive and concentrate on the CPU, memory, and graphics card.

Are there any warning beeps on boot up?
Do you have the option of viewing the boot up process, so that you can witness at what point it's freezing?

Try entering the BIOS, immediately on boot up, does it enter the BIOS?

[phil_88]

cheers mickha,

i cannot enter the bios as because as soon as i switch on the pc, the very first screen is a white acer screen, with the choice of pressing f2 and del for bios and boot settings but i cant press them because the pc just freezes, it dosent go to the black screen with all the writing before it boots windows,

i havent got no beeps at all, ive tried different memory sticks and ive tried a couple of graphics cards too, i also tried without the graphics card,and just using the mobo graphics and still no luck

[phil_88]

im gonna ask a bit of a newbie question here, but im looking to get a new cpu for another pc that ive got and build that for him put all his stuff into it, because all it needs is a cpu, but im unsure which one to get, the one i took out of it is a

amd sempron 3000, 754 socket type

do i have to get exactly the same one or can i get any whats got socket type 754