computer wont start

[ru4us]

well first off my pc started one night by its self and the orange light and the cd rom light were flashing intermitily, and the comp would not boot so i got the cd tray out and the comp booted but when the tray went in it shut the comp off .and now it will not do any thing, if you unplug it and reconnect the fans start by themselves but nothing else, the monitor light is yellow, the cdrom light is green and stuck on, the tray wont come out on its own the power button does nothing, but does work.i checked the ps has the right voltages and seems to be fine,i unpluged and reconnected all the connectors, by the way its a hp 6638 pavillion 533mhz with celeron and is 3 years old. PLEASE HELP

 

[PeterGriff]

Start with the basics - get your PC into a minimal configuration:

Turn off the power and unplug the lead.
Unplug all the drive cables from the motherboard (floppy and IDE)
Remove all cards except the video card
Remove all external devices except the mouse and kb
Plug your power back in and let it start.

If it boots and checks then stops saying it cant find a boot disk or OS then things arent looking too bad. Turn off/unplug, then add back your devices ONE at a time starting with the hard drive and restart. When it starts misbehaving you have found the culprit in the last device added.

If your PC didnt get this far with a minimal configuration then you have a fault in either the mboard, CPU or fan, RAM, video card, or power supply. As you have indicated that the PS seems to be OK then RAM and mboard are the next most likely. Try and find some working RAM and replace. When all other possibilities have been eliminated and only the motherboard is left then it should be the culrit by elimination.

From the symptoms you mention it sounds like you may have had a power surge so you the most likely would be a dead modem, or a dead mboard, or possibly a dead CD-ROM drive as it is doing odd things.

Peter G

 

[ru4us]

The modem and the ram are the only cards I have in it. The rest of them are intergrated into the motherboard. I removed the cards, stripped it down to just the power supply and plugged it in, and the CPU fan came on, and nothing else happened. Do you have any more suggestions?

 

[PeterGriff]

Try replacing the power supply and RAM if you can borrow one for testing, but it sounds very much like a dead mboard. Be prepared for a shock when you see the replacement price from HP!! Upgrading the mb into a new box might be cheaper.

Peter G