I’ve been bangin my head against the wall with this one, and thought maybe I should ask my computer peeps. This all started July 21st. Whenever the system starts there are NO BEEPS, and all fans are working three total.
The system in question is a Compaq Presario S3200NX, it came with a 250W power supply, which I changed out for a 450W power supply about 6months ago. A few days ago the computer wouldn’t turn on, so my first thought was that the power supply died for whatever reason. So, I put in another 450w power supply (works in an older system) and still nothing. So I took out the PCI video card, and then the system started right up.
It worked for about an hour and then shut down again. This time I was thinking “over heating?”. I took the side off and tried to start it up. Nothing. So, I got on the horn and talked to HP Compaq support. They told me to take out the video card and the 450w power supply and put the 250w back in. So, I did that. System started and got as far as the desktop and shutdown. I suggested clearing the CMOS, which the HP Compaq agreed I should try. I did that and the system started right up. The HP Compaq guy said it might be a hardware issue. I’m thinking hard drive…It worked for about 20mins and shut down AGAIN. :-[
I started it back up and did a system restore, I thought maybe my roommate installed something or got a bad update. I restored to July 1st. It worked for about and hour or so and shutdown again. I turn it back on and got the message where it gives you the options to start in safe mode, safe mode command prompt, etc. I start in safe mode.
I go to the system pc doctor that HP Compaq installed and did the tests on all the hardware but the hard drive and they all passed. I had it test the hard drive and the system shut down during that test.
SO, with that would it be safe to say its a hard drive issue??
Thank you for all who has read this, I know I typed a novel. :-\
SO, with that would it be safe to say its a hard drive issue??
Hi seriouscap,
Welcome to the forum.
It very well could be however, it sure sounds like an overheating problem..... ???
Hopefully some of the hardware 'experts' can be a little more definitive.
If there are no beeps on start up (at least one), then it doesn’t appear that the POST (power on self test) checks are being carried out. The CMOS reset I would have thought should have had it covered.
The other possibility is that the system speaker is up the creek and I’m not sure if anything can be done for that, but if there are boot issues then the speaker wouldn’t seem an issue.
Hey thanks for the link. When I get home tonight im going to try this that I found on there. The only thing in the PCI slots is a sound card. So maybe after this it will direct me closer to the conclusion that its a HD problem.
[i]"No beeps and no POST
Pull everything out of the machine except for the CPU and power the PC up. The PC should now only consist of a power supply, a motherboard and a CPU/HSF. This means your PC should have no video card, RAM or IDE cables. You should have no PCI cards and that includes modems and sound cards. Have a power button and speaker hooked up to the board so you can turn it on and listen for beep codes.
If you have the PC stripped down this much and you still do not get any beep codes, then you may have an issue with either the CPU, motherboard or power supply."[/i]
If you interrupt the boot you could try to boot to a command prompt, and see if it will do a 'dir C:' without the quotes if it gives a listing then it is finding the drive and it is retrieving data so that should give an indication if the drive is recognised and working.
