Help for a Friend

P

PabloTeK

Active Member
Ok lads and ladies:

My mate has recently been having computer issues in the sense that he'll be using it and then the HDD light goes dead and the PC freezes up, but the mouse still works. I've tried a reformat and checking for bad sectors, that was all ok, but it's returned. The specs are:

AMD Athlon64 AM2 3500+
ASRock NF6G-VSTA
1GB Generic RAM
200GB Maxtor HDD
Winpower 400w PSU
Onboard nVidia GFX

Now we would send it back to Eclipse Computers (Coventry) but we've opened it up to fit a WiFi card in and they say that voids the warranty. Any ideas? It's a real confusing issue.
 
GCR said:
I'll get him to do that; also, do ASRock motherboards always come without speakers? His hasn't got one.
Click to expand...

do you mean the internal speakers ie the buzzer.
They should come with one that you need to connect to the speaker/buzzer header (normally near the power on button headers)
 
Sounds like some sort of hard drive or mobo problem. I had a mobo with a bad IDE connector, and if you bumped it, it would loose connection with the hard drive, and I would behave exactly as you just described. Mouse still moves but if you try to do anything nothing happens.
 
Hi, GCR has been doing the post for me, basically there is no pattern as to when the freezes happen, they happen when in games, just on windows and when i reboot after a freeze , it often freezes on startup ... any help appreciated, James
(P.S just ask for any extra info) :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Pull the wifi card and it's drivers and don't tell them you opened it up. Then send it back. They will never know.
 
They will because the blanking port is AWOL and the waranty voiding stickers have been broken. Could a virus do this? We carried over some music from a re-install but it even happens on boot.
 
GCR said:
They will because the blanking port is AWOL and the waranty voiding stickers have been broken. Could a virus do this? We carried over some music from a re-install but it even happens on boot.
Click to expand...

Ouch! Ok then, that's out.

I do not think a virus would cause this kind of problem.

The only thing I can think of is the ram. I know you did a mem test, but have you tried using a different stick of ram? If you have 2 sticks of 512, then pull one of them and try it, if that does not work then replace the stick and pull the other one. Making sure to leave a stick in the first slot.

It could be a PSU problem, Winpower psu's are not the best around, and doing a quick search on the web I found a lot of people having problems with it.

But PSU problems usually tend to shut down your system, not lock them up. Unless the cable or rail to the HD is having problems. Try using a different power cable from the psu to the HD, one not on the same rail as the one that is hooked up now. It's worth a try. But not to likely.
 
He doesn't. And I've told him to replace the PSU but it's not a shutdown. The PC still continues to display the image and the mouse moves but the rest freezes as if it had shutdown. The HDD LED also dies so I think it may be the motherboard. Would be a good excuse to replace the AMD stock fan if it is.
 
Yeah, I would have to lean towards the motherboard being the problem. Time for an upgrade i would think. Replace the motherboard and cpu with an upgraded one. Also, get a new psu, the one he has is really a poor choice. But, make sure he backs up all the important info on his HD, because you will need to reformat and do a fresh install of the OS.
 
He had no choice over the PSU, and the PC was new in January. The 3500+ is fine for him but the freezes aren't. I'll look into getting a new mobo for him.
 
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