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General discussion

Computer Failing To Start Up (but tries!)

Jun 13, 2007 2:29AM PDT

Yesterday morning I tried turning on my computer and it turned on for about 3 seconds, no beeps, then turned off, it then tried to turn on again about 3 seconds later and the cycle continued.

The machine is from evesham technology about two years old. It's was a hi spec machine when I bought it, but is average by today's standards. It is fully protected with spyware doctor, nod32 virus scanner and ashampoo winoptimizer.

The night before it would not respond when I had left it on for a few hours, the screen showed nothing yet the computer was 'on'. So I held the power button down to switch it off manually. Since then I've had this problem.

I've switched the power cable to see if that made any difference, but to avail.

Any help would be great. Happy

Discussion is locked

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Any other symptoms?
Jun 13, 2007 2:56AM PDT

Did you have any other symptoms other than what happened last night?

Most likely you have either a bad power supply or a bad motherboard. If the machine is starting up (fans spinning, etc), but not getting to the point where it checks components (the beeping part), then I think it is one of those 2 components. Memory would cause beeping, CPU should do the same. I'm not sure, but I think graphics cards do the same as well, but I haven't had that go bad by the bios (I have on the other 2... ;] ) Power supplies are a lot more interchangable than motherboards, if you have another PC or want to do it easier, try replacing that. Unfortunately, if it is your motherboard, it becomes a lot more of a pain.

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Making A Noise
Jun 13, 2007 5:27PM PDT

For the last few months the computer has been making a lot of noise when I've been working on heavy duty programs. It happened before and a techician looked at it and said it was clogged up with dust After he cleaned it it stopped making the noise but it had started doing it again.

I think the cpu fan starts, but I'll see if I can see if the power supply fan moves at all.

Thank you for you help.