Help with my Computer... wont start up.

[Nino Valenti]

OK.... here's the deal. I had WIndows Media Player 11 open, I plugged in my MP3 player to sync some music and the computer froze. I hit CTL/ALT/DLT a few times, nothing. I held the power button down for a few a while to and nothing. So I unplugged the computer so I can restart it.......




......I restart it.... the lights on the tower light up but NOTHING else happens. There is nothing on the monitor, the caps locks/# locks on the keyboard don't light up and the only way to turn it off is to unplug it.


Anyone have any ideas what the heck is wrong?

[Chunk-O-Funk]

Did you unplug your MP3 player before restarting it?

[fenderhutz]

Unplug the power cord. Let it sit for about 2 minutes. Plug it back in.

Boot it up.

Sometimes reseating the RAM fixes those issues as well when the motherboard gets confused. Simply pop off the side with the power cord out, undo the little white latches on the ram, pull it out and put it back in. Plug up and turn on. You can also try and boot up the machine without RAM and if it beep three times USUALLY the mother board is still good. If not it could be a power supply issue, or USB short, or a variety of things you would have to try and remove one by one.

[eedre]

That sounds pretty serious

Can you hear the fan start up when you restart it?

If output to the keyboard, mouse, and monitor is dead, then you may have a fried motherboard or a damaged power supply.

[fenderhutz]

Also you can pull the "watch" battery off the motherboard while the machine is unplugged for about 10 minutes and pop the battery back in as a last case scenario. Forces the BIOS/CMOS to reset itself.

[Croox]

Originally Posted by eedre

If output to the keyboard, mouse, and monitor is dead, then you may have a fried motherboard or a damaged power supply.

That was my first thought, also another point to look at is the power supply could have died.

[moomoocajoo]

+1

Same thing has happened to my sister's PC :/

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Try resetting the bios. (either with jumper pins or removing the battery)

But it could be the power supply, Ive had one go before

[Webtroll]

Unplug the MP3 player? I have had USB devices go bad on me before, most recently a Kenwood Keg unit. If I plug in the Keg unit it starts to detect and all of my drives stop responding followed shortly by the OS itself.

[Nino Valenti]

Originally Posted by Chunk-O-Funk

Did you unplug your MP3 player before restarting it?

Yes.

[Nino Valenti]

Originally Posted by eedre

That sounds pretty serious

Can you hear the fan start up when you restart it?

Yes, I can hear the fans.

[Nino Valenti]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

Also you can pull the "watch" battery off the motherboard while the machine is unplugged for about 10 minutes and pop the battery back in as a last case scenario. Forces the BIOS/CMOS to reset itself.

Tried that. No good.

[fenderhutz]

You try anything I advised Nino? I do this for a living you know

Let me know if you yank the ram and the motherboard beeps three times when you turn on the machine without the RAM.

We can go from there. The will let us know if the motherboard is shot or not.

Also reseat the video card if you have one.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

Originally Posted by Webtroll

Unplug the MP3 player? I have had USB devices go bad on me before, most recently a Kenwood Keg unit. If I plug in the Keg unit it starts to detect and all of my drives stop responding followed shortly by the OS itself.

I've had a memory card reader do this to me.

If there was a memory card in the reader the computer would not boot. Never made it to the OS. The boot priority was not the culprit. An MP3 has memory storage much like a memory card, so it's conceivable.

I'm not saying it's the problem, but I will say it the easiest thing to check first.

[jon118]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

Let me know if you yank the ram and the motherboard beeps three times when you turn on the machine without the RAM.

We can go from there. The will let us know if the motherboard is shot or not.

Also reseat the video card if you have one.

Good advice there, I always have to take care of my friends computers when they screw something up, one of them had his mobo fry a few weeks ago so the thing had to be rebuilt. Of course I'm always the first guy they go to when something breaks and it always amazes me that they aren't scared to mess with anything on the computer until they screw something up, then they basically refuse to touch the thing until I fix it. The only thing that makes it worse is when they go to geek squad first and geek squad diagnoses the problem and are completely wrong. Then it takes extra effort to convince the owner of the real problem with the computer. I should start charging.

[Nino Valenti]

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

You try anything I advised Nino? I do this for a living you know

Let me know if you yank the ram and the motherboard beeps three times when you turn on the machine without the RAM.

We can go from there. The will let us know if the motherboard is shot or not.

Also reseat the video card if you have one.

Tried that and nothing happened.

I also have a backup computer that it almost identical to the messed up one. I changed the power supply and still nothing.

[fenderhutz]

Your motherboard is toast, yanking the RAM is a simple hardware test to see if your motherboard is functioning on the most basic of levels before it loads anything.

No beeps, it's toast. Especially after trying a new power supply.

Sorry for you loss.

[Nino Valenti]

Is it hard to pull the the hard drive out and place it in the other tower?

[Sonic_Death]

Originally Posted by Nino Valenti

Is it hard to pull the the hard drive out and place it in the other tower?

No, that is quite simple to do. Depending if it is ATA or SATA there are some differences, but both options are simple to do. From the sound of it, you should be able to salvage your information unless your HD was fried. Just sounds like your motherboard is shot though.

[ManuelJG]

computer specs?
If you can't enter the bios, then I think your mobo is failing to initialize.