Any computer experts here?

[RPA]

Sounds like motherboard or power supply

[TheTreeWiseMen]

Have you threatened it yet? I find it works.........sometimes.

[Bob Rolfe]

hd knackered....i think ? there only £30 quid it may be worth stickin one in before you scrap it

[MasterBlaster]

Ten years? Bin the sucker! You shoulda done it after 4 or 5. You're gonna poop your skivvies when you see how fast your new one is!

 

Congrats!

[Giles]

i have got this problem on a compaq laptop it wont turn on at all now but same thing it started off just a small problem pressing the button a couple of times then it would boot but now nothing but still power going there. i got a computer for all my work and the net it would be nice to get it going again though. any help would be great.

[Jason James Gairn]

If theres power and its not going on, then it could be the video card. it may well be on and you don't know it. If the hard drive isn't booting it maybe a deadun. You would have to have some data recovery which is expensive. Do PC world really do that service for £29.99? I guess thats when the computer is working well enough to find the files.

PCs are as cheap as chips at the moment. In future back up and chuck it in the bin. I'm getting anew power mac next week. My PCs are looking scared.

[Jason James Gairn]

10 years old! The chip must be about 66mhz. As Masterblaster points out, when you get even a cheap new PC it will take your head off. Surely your not using it for this forum, or you wouldn't be posting.

[Quickthorn]

10 years old! The chip must be about 66mhz. As Masterblaster points out, when you get even a cheap new PC it will take your head off. Surely your not using it for this forum, or you wouldn't be posting.

 

Well it seems to be working ok for the forum.

 

Looking on google, it may well be a power supply problem, apparently if one of the voltages drops even a tiny amount, it won't recognise it as the startup signal. Just dirt in it can act as lots of mini resistors and drop the voltage slightly. I think it's due for the bin, though. One of the other problems is that up to date downloads like pdf readers won't work on windows 98, so by the time you've paid for an up to date operating system, you might as well buy a whole new computer..

[Huffski]

Open up the side casing and check that the wires to the start up switch have nt come loose mine did that.

[Quickthorn]

Open up the side casing and check that the wires to the start up switch have nt come loose mine did that.

 

Done that, they look ok. I've managed to reset the bios so that it comes on when I switch on at the mains, so I hope the thing can struggle on til I find the money to buy a new one. Can anyone recommend a basic model or place to go ? NOT pcworld, as nobody in there can tell their arse from their elbow, from what I've seen. I'm not sure whether a desktop would be best, or whether a laptop might be cheaper..