oops I think my PC died :-(

[chrisjones]

Hi,
My old P4 machine (that I passed onto my GF's daughter) looks to have given up the ghost. Basically last night when she went to shut down, it went to power off and started making the oddest clicking sound. In the end I had to pull the power lead only to find this morning it wouldnt power back up! In the end I got it to power up by holding in the power button. I ran a disk check which came back fine.
I returned home tonight to be told that it had again refused to power down, now I cant get it back on at all.

Does anyone have any suggestions...... not just how to fix it, but of any cheap deals on towers at the moment :-P

Thanks in advance,

[SnoopZ]

Sounds like it might just be the switch on the case....but wait for God Zingle to reply!

[admars]

have a look in event view 9honest not my answer to everything but a good place to start )

event viewer
start -> settings -> Control panel -> Administrative tools - Event viewer
(or start run eventvwr)
that's XP
Vista it looks different, but in a similar place!

Could be a hardware or software reason for it not shutting down. Ticking could be hard disk (event viewer may suggest that) or PSU , which event viewer wouldn't really no about but would explain starting up problem.

[mischievious]

It sounds like you may have more than one issue:

The "clicking" sound is likely down to the hard drive. if the clicking is lound and rythmic e.g. a single click repeating would likely be a sign of hard disk failure. If the clicking sounds like a bee in a matchbox (random but intense) then it could just as well be a sofware issue as hardware.

If the issue were the power button then it would still shutdown so I'm not convinced about that one. It would prevent power up though so it's possible that it's broken though not likely. The fact you powered up by holding in the button is intriguing as the reverse is usually true, hence my comment that it could be broken.

I agree with the last post concerning the event viewer, which "should" give an indication of why you couldn't shut-down. my money is on a process or service which is not giving up its resources. In both XP and Vista you can take a look by running eventvwr.exe command (actually runs eventvwr.msc). I post "should" as in these cases this is more "gives hope".

As to your query regarding cheap deals on towers it looks as though you really don't want to spend hours trying to fix the problem, personally and I know this may be considered controversial but I would suggest Dell. Depending upon your budget even if you buy a reeeeally basic box you get a cracking case.

In both cases though I would suggest copying any valuable data somewhere else somehow as the integrity of you drive has not been verified. chkdsk verifies the NTFS structure not drive integrity.

[chrisjones]

Hi guys,
Thanks for your answers BUT I just just plugged is in and well... I think the loud 'pop' followed by the lovely electrical smell from the back of the power supply/fan might have just be a large hint :-P

[swoop101]

Clicking is quite often from the PSU having a fault.
I have had 2 do this in the last 3 weeks replacing is easy and can be quite cheap. Although a slightly more expensive one will be more reliable.

[chrisjones]

Do you have any advice as to where I can pick one up and how I go about finding which one I require?

[smee init]

Whats the make, model and etc?

[mischievious]

Originally Posted by swoop101

Clicking is quite often from the PSU having a fault.
I have had 2 do this in the last 3 weeks replacing is easy and can be quite cheap. Although a slightly more expensive one will be more reliable.

I apologise if only I find this funny but you quote above really does suggest spending a little more money

I would normally expect the PSU clicking to manifest as a buzzing??? I haven't had one blow to this exteme and would apreciate knowing which PSU's to avoid.

I have seen PSU's blowing in vast numbers of MESH computers, I didn't buy them, I would not go near MESH unless they were the only supplier of PC's and it was impossible to source my own parts. However this was without the Clicking, popping yes!

In my experience aria.co.uk are excellent they don't stock total crap and are reasonable. dabs used to be good about 5 years ago but their prices for even basic stuff started to increase a lot so I haven't used them for a while but I haven't been back either so they may well be a good source. They are certainly reputable. I could quote many sites but my personal fave is aria so I'll stoip there for a bit.

[Halcyon]

Anything around 400Watts and upwards should be fine for a Pentium4.

Depending on if you want to invest much money in this system, a Seasonic power supply is rock solid.
If you just need something to get you going again then any power supply above £25 should do.

If that is still too much a cheap as chips power supply can be bought for about £10 but the quality is not guarenteed to be much good.

Let's hope the supply didnt short your other components. If it was a newish computer with a decent power supply it should have had some protection circuits built in.

[smee init]

Originally Posted by mischievious

I would normally expect the PSU clicking to manifest as a buzzing??? I haven't had one blow to this exteme and would apreciate knowing which PSU's to avoid.

It could have been the fan making a clicking sound and system will freeze on a screen and not switch off if overheating until it goes pop I have seen this on many occasions out in the field.

[swoop101]

Originally Posted by mischievious

I apologise if only I find this funny but you quote above really does suggest spending a little more money
.

You miss understand me my friend.
I build and fix computers for family and friends.

These were both bought systems from well known manufacturers that had fitted cheap units to save on building costs.

(Evesham and Mesh)

[mischievious]

Originally Posted by smee init

It could have been the fan making a clicking sound and system will freeze on a screen and not switch off if overheating until it goes pop I have seen this on many occasions out in the field.

Ahh in this context you could indeed be correct as the type of clicking has never been explained/substantiated.

The problem then left is why the user could not power the usit on from cold.

---------- Post added at 21:32 ---------- Previous post was at 21:26 ----------

Originally Posted by swoop101

You miss understand me my friend.
I build and fix computers for family and friends.

These were both bought systems from well known manufacturers that had fitted cheap units to save on building costs.

(Evesham and Mesh)

Sorry does this post suggest you were building systems based up Evesham and Mesh?

I submit that being "well known" does not mean good.... Evesham is another of my Hated PC's they make nothing either of them, they complile cheap and crap systems from unverified sources.

Please tell me this is not the case?

OP says in post 1

I returned home tonight to be told that it had again refused to power down, now I cant get it back on at all

Then 2 people in posts 3 and 4 endorse a visit to Event Viewer How? the pc wont start lol hehehehehehehe

[swoop101]

Sorry does this post suggest you were building systems based up Evesham and Mesh?

Please tell me this is not the case?

No it means I was fixing them when they had broken.