My Computer - Prof. Paperweight

[Rh0ads]

Hi,
I'm trying to fix a computer, it is a Compaq Presario 450 Mhz running (ran, rather) Windows 98SE. It was shut down and now it won't start back up!
When I push the power button the fans and everything make noise, and the hard drive makes noise for a litle bit as well, but nothing ever comes up on the monitor (which is plugged in). After a few seconds all of the noises from the hard drive and cd-rom drives stop and I can only hear the fan. My CD-rom drives are responsive when I push the eject buttons. Normally when the power button was first pressed the machine said "Compaq" for 2 or 3 seconds, before the boot process even began and now that doesn't even come up. I've taken out the CMOS battery and put it back in, with no luck. I have taken out the hard drive and plugged it into another computer (Win98SE) and the hard drive isn't corrupt, at least from what I can tell - all of the files are accessible.
I've tried starting the computer with a boot disk but the floppy drive light doesn't even come on.
If anyone has any ideas/suggestions/comments please post away.

Thanks,
-George

[mendhak]

How old is the computer?

I have been experiencing this same problem for about 1 year now, but mine is an Acer.

This is caused by accumulation of dust, and is also the result of harsh environment on the CPU.

Here's what you do:

Open up the CPU, disassemble the motherboard, i.e., take out the RAM, LAN Card, Hard Drives, Floppy Drives, CMOS battery, etc (I certainly hope you know how to).

Give them a good cleaning, and don't forget to clean the motherboard as well.

Re-assemble the whole thing, and *ensure* that the RAM chips are in properly, because they have proven to be the culprit several times.

Now start it up.

If it doesn't work, then there's another thing you oughta do: Turn the computer on, let it do it's "Hey I'm pretending to boot up" thing, and leave it on for a few hours. At least 5 or 6 I say. In fact, leave it on overnight.

Next day, turn it off, and start it up again.

Should work.

If it doesn't, then here's the last resort, which is what I am dealing with nowadays:

Your hard drive motor is getting stuck. Shake your CPU left and right real fast a few times, and give it a couple slaps on the side. You should hear the hard drive motor whirring to life again, and everything should be normal.


I am not making this last step up.

Good luck.

[Rh0ads]

Thanks for the reply Mendhak!

Well, the computer is around 4 or 5 years old.

I took everything out and used an air compressor and got a lot of dust out of everything, but it still won't boot.

Something I forgot to mention before is that my integrated video card doesn't work - the monitor says that there's no connection - is it possible that my motherboard died?

I think later I'll try plugging the components into another motherboard and see if that works. If that doesn't work I'll keep it running for a day or so like you suggested and see what happens after that.

When the computer was in its "idle" state, I kinda shook the hard drive a little bit and it felt like a gyroscope, so I guess that means the disk inside is moving, is that what you meant by the motor, or is there something else inside that is responsible for reading the data?(That's probably not a good thing, shaking a harddrive when its plugged in )

-George

[Admiral Michael]

Did you try installing another video card? It should disable the onboard and use the new one (if the mobo isnt dead)

[Rh0ads]

Good idea....I just tried that and still didn't get anything - my "Compaq" boot screen didn't show up ...so I guess it looks like a dead board,

Thank again,
-George