Fans working but nothing else works?

[Leesah]

Hi.. Got a problem and dont know how to fix it.

A friend of mine (less computer savvy than myself) had the following problem with her pc and hoping I can get some answers for her.

She always leaves her pc on (with a cable connection to the internet. She advised that she went to bed one night and upon waking up, the pc had shut down. Upon restarting it, her keyboard wouldnt work. She also claimed that it smelled like something was burning so she shut it down.

I brought it home and opened the case to find it LOADED with dust. I blew out the dust from the fans and everything and once I started it up, everything worked fine... for a couple of hours.

I was running a virus scan to make sure all was well and it went into standby mode (from what it appeared ~ the monitor light and pc light turned orange) ~ I wasnt right there to see exactly what happened. Anyhow, upon trying to get it out of sleep mode, nothing happened. I then attempted to manually shut it down and the light started flickering and I heard a ticking noise... basically it wouldnt shut off.

I then unplugged it completely and let it sit for a couple minutes and then plugged it back in. The light turned orange and was flickering and the fans came on but nothing else happened. (generally when it is turned on the light is green). The monitor light stayed orange as well ~ as if it's getting no activity.

Did the motherboard get fried?

Like I said, the cooling and power supply fans both work and the light on front shows I'm getting power ~ just appears to be in standby mode. HELP!

Thanks!

Leesah

[PrntRhd]

Moved to Core Hardware as no help questions are to be posted in PC World.

[Whyzman]

Not quite sure what this bad boy will still do...if you have a floppy drive would you try www.memtest86.com?

[Puter Padowan]

Hi Leesah

One issue MIGHT be that due to overheating, some things may have gotten damaged. If you are comfortable with doing so... you COULD try replacing the power supply with a known good one to see if you could get anything.

When attempting to power on the system, do you even hear any sounds? Beep codes at all? Let us know what's going on so far.

[Mini-Me]

At this stage, my vote is for possible static damage, depending on the method of dust removal.

Static can easily kill a motherboard, or damage it just enough to make it unreliable.

Did you use an anti-static earthing strap when you blew out the dust, to earth youself to the computer case? Not doing so, could result in a static discharge to the mainboard via your body and the cleaning instrument used to remove the dust.

HOWEVER, as you were able to de-dust and get it running again(even if only for a few hours!), this is probably not the cause, although a static damaged(but not dead) motherboard can cause all sorts of crazy behaviour.

Can you tell us if you used an anti-static strap while you removed the dust?

...or you could just be unlucky. My guess is that with all that dust, the PC was running hot for many, many hours of up-time, and although getting rid of the dust was a very good thing to do, it was already 98% tortured to death when you discovered that, and even with the dust removed, and the air-flow back again, after a couple more hours, it gave up and died due to cumlative heat-stress...
:(

[mjc]

Check ALL jumpers/wires making sure they are fully seated...pay special attention to the CMOS jumper (heck, you may want to pull the battery and replace it, any way...)

Also, examine all the capacitors (little can shaped items sticking up from the board) on the motherboard...look for any signs of leaking or bulging ones...

[Leesah]

Hi guys,

I tried the floppy drive idea and it was unsuccessful.

I took a good known power supply and tried it in her pc and I got the same results. The light that surrounds the power button on front is not turning on, but the led (i guess it's called ~ the little light that flashes when there is activity) is flashing contstantly and the fans (both power supply and pc cooling fans) are both running.

I checked the mother board for any bulging or leaking capacitors and for any cracks or discoloring and found nothing out of the ordinary.

I am getting no beeps whatsoever but I do hear a light ticking type noise that only stops once I disconnect the power cord from the back of the pc.

One thing I also noticed was when I switched out the power supply, the light on the power supply was also flashing. Almost seems like something is shorting out??

I'm certainly not a hardware guru so not sure where to proceed from here.

Also, I did not use an anti-static strap while dusting out the pc. I just brought it home and dusted it before attempting to plug it in and see if it worked.

I appreciate all of your replies guys!

Beginning to think that it may have went to pc heaven! :(

Leesah

[Mini-Me]

I think that the motherboard has died - they can do this from one day to the next.

However, you could try a few of the other things...

PLEASE BUY OR BORROW AN ANTI-STATIC STRAP BEFORE YOU TRY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING!!!

Ideally, you should use an earthed work-desk, but this is not really practical, unless you build/service lots of PC's!!!
:D

Clip the aligator clip end to the metal of the PC case, and put the other end around your wrist so that the metal part of the wrist strap is in direct contact with your skin.

Unplug all the hard-drives, floppy and CD-ROM drives' data cables(usually flat and grey). Fire up the box, and see if it beeps at you at this point.

If not, then remove the RAM sticks and place them in the bottom of the case, or on the metal side of the PSU case. DO NOT put the RAM down on any other surface, as RAM sticks are especially sensivtive to static discharge, and placing them on a metal surface will effectively sheild them while you are tinkering!
:p

Fire up the box, and see if it beeps at you.

If neither of these two things produce any beep from the system, and no signs of life, then the motherboard has died, or the CPU brain has died.

If you can identify the type and speed of the CPU, you could try another one in the board and see if this produces any signs of life, however, if you have never done any of this, I might be getting a bit ahead of you...

Good luck.

BTW: If the system is any P1 series with a CPU speed of 100,133,166, 200 or 233MHz, then it is cheaper and easier to trash the dead one, and replace the box as a whole - you can buy boxes like these for around $20.00 or so 2nd hand.