Computer Hardware Help - Page 2

spunker88 · 03-21-08, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by ksong12

For my purposes, they are most definately not the same, hehe. I upgraded to 1GB, of RAM, but that is the max that the 2400 motherboard supports. Not good enough for me.

I do a lot of video editing, and a P4 doesn't even come close. Before, I rendered at about 20 frames per second, now I am chugging along at about 100-120 frames per second. Even though I upgraded my graphics card, the 2400 can barely handle a game like Halo, let alone Crysis, or any modern game that my new rig and just plow through. An upgrade from 40GB (default on 2400; I upped mine to 80 GB later), to a nice 1TB doesn't hurt either, nor does 5.1 surround sound!

(Oh, and it's got water cooling :))

Not saying that the 2400 is a bad machine; its a good one! It led me through 5 years, but its just getting too old for today's world and what I do.

I dont do any of that high demand stuff. Just mostly browsing the web and all my games are old.

**ksong12** · 03-21-08, 08:07 PM

Yep, the 2400 is a perfect machine for that. Nice, cheap, effective. Its a shame Dell has moved away from that business model now.

Oh, and star, I have that sitting in the tubes on my other computer, the one I'm using as a living room computer. Plays all those Hi-Def movies perfectly ;-)

Did ya see that oil cooled machine? Entire computer is sitting in a tank of oil. Exposed and all. No case whatsoever.

I like your sig, btw.

spunker88 · 03-31-08, 07:50 AM

Originally Posted by spunker88

I dont have much experience with the "guts" of computers, so i didnt really know what to do.

My grandparents have a pc that wont start. But, its doing the weirdest thing i have ever seen. When u plug it in the power light shows orange instead of green and the fan comes on. The CD drive opens, the hd isnt starting and the monitor just stays at a self test screen.

I think the mobo or hd failed, but if the hd failed then how come im not even getting a boot screen or anything. Most pcs will scan the a: drive first, but i get nothing. The cd drive seems to scan the disk but then does nothing. Tried boot disks, tried sys restore cds, tried F8, but the power button wont respond, it turns on/off by plug in onlu and the pc does nothing.

They did tell me before it went up that it shut down randomly, gave weird boot options, etc.

What is wrong with it, it is only 3-4yrs old?

My grandparents have decided to give me this computer. If figured the least i could do is use it for parts. It has a cd-rw and a DVD drive. I have an old computer that works, but the cd drive is junk, so hopefully i can upgrade it with one from this computer.

What about the hd? I never heard it start but is it still good? It may just not be getting any power. The same old computer above has a very small hd, and it would be nice to put this hd in it to upgrade it. It had an 80gb in it. Is that possible?

Also, would it be possible to get any of the old files off that hd before i format it. They told me that there was some pics on there that werent saved anywhere else.

keet · 03-31-08, 08:51 AM

Check to determine whether everything is plugged in tightly. Reseat the RAM chips, the video card, and anyother things (sound cards, IDE/SATA connectors...) that are plugged in to the motherboard.

If it still won't start, try clearing and resetting the CMOS settings. There should be a jumper that you can switch, and remove the CMOS battery (it's basically a large watch battery), and hold the power button down for about ten seconds, then switch the jumper back and reinstall the battery.

If that doesn't work, remove all RAM modules but one, and try turning it on with just one module at a time. If one doesn't work, try another.

If that doesn't work... yes, like someone else said, it could be a problem with the power supply, or a damaged CPU. You could try getting a PCI BIOS error diagnostic board; they usually cost only about $20 or $30.. it might not be so worth it for an older system, but it might prove helpful in the future.

Just burn all the data they want to keep to CD or DVD by installing the HD in another computer.

spud42 · 03-31-08, 09:51 AM

spunker. to put the hdd in your existing system check to see that the jumper at the back of the hdd is set to slave. then put it on the second connector onthe cable that you main hdd is on. windows will see it if its ok and will show a drive letter for it in explorer....then if it is ok just copy the files you want off of it to your existing drive and then burn to a disc so they can have the files back..
even if the drive shows up there might be bad sectors. which means that you might get some data off but some may be corrupt. with luck and if it is a bad board or cpu the hdd should be ok..... ohh the lable on the hdd should show you how to set it to slave if not then post here the drive brand and type and i can look it up for you.

spunker88 · 06-17-08, 09:59 AM

Im finally getting this pc soon. They took it somewhere to see if it could be fixed, and it wasnt worth it b/c a new mobo or proc would cost too much.

Now i am wondering if i can salvage the hard drive for my old computer. I still got the documentation for this thing, and on the original paperwork it shows that no second hd was ordered, meaning that there must be a spot for one. Also, the primary hd is IDE. Are these harddrives still used? Will the one in my grandparents pc be an IDE? Its from around 2004.

I really hope this hd works, b/c they had some data on it, and i would finally be able to get xp onto my old system, b/c it only has 3gb right now, which is a little small. Plus my 3gb hd has a bad sector on it or something, b/c it always fails defrag tests at around 11%, but still works for the most part.

The CD drive is also failing on my old pc. I was barely able to get it to upgrade to 2000. Would i be able to use one of the drives from my grandparents pc to fix my old pc?

Thanks for the help.

spunker88 · 06-19-08, 03:56 PM

UPDATE:
I put the hd from this thing in my old pc. I didnt want to mess around with jumpers, so i just swapped out my hd for the one out of my grandparents pc.

It just doesnt want to work. My BIOS recognizes it, and i cant format it, b/c dos says it cant format NTFS partitions.

I tried going straight to a windows 2000/windows xp install. Both cds say their is not enough space on c: to install, and refuse to go to the format screen.

I tried a NTFS dos disk, and was able to get the capacity and no bad sectors.
Im thinking my mobo or bios (both from 1998) dont want to support this thing.
Maybe i could try it in a newer pc.

Oh well, i guess thats what you get for free.

spud42 · 06-20-08, 09:12 AM

spunker, what os is in the PC that you are adding this drive to? if this drive is NTFS ( i assume that the grandparents comp was running xp?) then you would need at least win2k or XP to see this drive. if yours is a 1998 PC and theres was a 2004 pc maybe you cant use it yourself un less you completly wipe it using fdisk.. etc. delete the partition and then make a new one as FAT32 .do you have access to an XP machine that you could add this Hdd into to get the files off first? if not for a small fee im sure the local comp place could do it for you....unfortunately i am a little too far away to help out ...lol

you could also try putting the drive in an external USB enclosure. then get files off it that way..delete what you dont want then go the format that way. if your bios recognises it and ntfs dos sees its ok then the drive is probably good..

spunker88 · 06-20-08, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by spud42

spunker, what os is in the PC that you are adding this drive to? if this drive is NTFS ( i assume that the grandparents comp was running xp?) then you would need at least win2k or XP to see this drive. if yours is a 1998 PC and theres was a 2004 pc maybe you cant use it yourself un less you completly wipe it using fdisk.. etc. delete the partition and then make a new one as FAT32 .do you have access to an XP machine that you could add this Hdd into to get the files off first? if not for a small fee im sure the local comp place could do it for you....unfortunately i am a little too far away to help out ...lol

you could also try putting the drive in an external USB enclosure. then get files off it that way..delete what you dont want then go the format that way. if your bios recognises it and ntfs dos sees its ok then the drive is probably good..

I added their hd as a secondary (slave) hard drive to my pc. The reason i couldnt do this originally was b/c the pci cable wouldnt reach. But, i managed to find a pci cable in my grandparents pc that would reach. So i put both hds in and presto, windows 2000 found it. I got all the files off of it for them, and now im trying to figure out how to move my windows 2000 installation over to it, and get rid of my old 3gb fat32 drive.
But, my bios doesnt really like this drive, so maybe ill just have to leave it as a secondary one, b/c at least that way i can boot into 2000 and then see it.

Also, i sacrificed a dvd/cd-rom combo drive out of there and installed that. It still works fine. I guess the mobo was the only think that was damaged when this thing went up.

spud42 · 06-24-08, 09:51 AM

well done mate. i would recomend you leave the 3.2 gig for system only. and use the new drive for data/installed programms etc.... move photos to it and docs. that sort of thing... treat it like a PDA lol and the new drive is a SD/CF card. move non os stuff of the old onto the new.. several reasons the main one being that the older a drive gets the more chance of it dying....if you really wanted to only go with the new drive then you can use GHOST to drive image the new one from the old one. but backup first on to cd's if you can so if it all goes wrong you havent lost anything.