HP a1310n problem

Blackhawk5421

Blackhawk5421

New Member
Howdy all.

I am trying to fix a desktop for a friend. It's a 3 year old HP a1310n and it was hit with a power surge during a lightning storm. He said it wasn't plugged into a power bar, just a wall outlet. It turns on, but the CPU fan kicks into high gear right away and there is no video. No beeps, no nothing. I bought a good used power supply off of ebay, and that had no affect. So, does that mean the motherboard is chooched? I"m still learning, so please bare with me.

Thanks!
Vince
 
How does that work? I could probably test it in my computer, but mine uses a totally different one and I don;t know if it would mess mine up?
 
Yes, I did and there was no change. Which leads me to belive that I spent 30 bucks and waited a week and a half for nothing.
 
Again, I'm not sure how that works. Don't different computers have different power requirements? My comp's power supply is a 250w and his is a 300. How will the larger supply affect my comp, if at all?
 
It should power it on. More watts won't kill your pc, and you don't
have to take everything out.

It doesn't sound like your comfortable doing this? If not, then I would
suggest you didn't.

You'll have to unplug most things on your pc to hook up the "new" psu.

You can just set the "new" psu beside your pc. As long as the 20 or 24
pin connector is the same for the board, it should work.
 
I don't have a problem doing it, I just don;t like diving into things without knowing all the details. Once I have the info, I'm all for it. Which is what I will do now.

Thanks for the help, and I will report back shortly.
 
No lights on the mobo.

I almost had it working for a few minutes. I powered it on, the cpu fan went into high speed, and it just sat there with a black screen. After about a minute, the fan went to normal speed, and i got the blue HP startup screen with the boot menu and system recovery options. I tried the boot menu, it went to a blank screen with a flashing cursor and that was it. Shut it down, started it again, it sounded quiet, got the same HP screen, tried system recovery and got the blank screen with the cursor. Tried to see if one of the two memory stick were bad by removing one at a time, and now it does the high speed fan/black screen thing again.
 
Sounds like you are looking at a fried motherboard. Since the CPU fan kicks on then the motherboard is getting power to it, but with the fan kicking straight into high speed it doesn't sound like its controlling anything or running up any processes. Replace the mobo or swap it out for a good one if you randomly can find one with the right socket type and tell your friend to splurge $15 on a power strip with surge protection at Wal-Mart.
 
Is there any way to swap out his graphics card, just to eliminate that
as the problem?

If he's getting a new board, then new RAM and CPU are in order also.
Could be a couple hundred bucks for some low line DDR2 stuff.
 
If you are not getting any beeps from the motherboard, then the motherboard is fried. The first thing that should happen after powering on the PSU is to get a beep from the motherboard. After that it loads all the different components, so the vid card and all the other components wouldn't be the problem. The motherboard is fried for sure, sorry man... (especially since you got it to the load screen once but it was still acting really funny...)
 
Thanks for the replies, fellas. I'll have to check with him and see what he wants to do. I checked E-bay and it seems the A8AE-LE mobos aren't a common item. Maybe if he doesn't want it after this, I can use the case and everything else, get a different mobo, and use this for a guinea pig/Ubuntu computer for myself.
 
Blackhawk5421 said:
Thanks for the replies, fellas. I'll have to check with him and see what he wants to do. I checked E-bay and it seems the A8AE-LE mobos aren't a common item. Maybe if he doesn't want it after this, I can use the case and everything else, get a different mobo, and use this for a guinea pig/Ubuntu computer for myself.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't waste any money on that old platform. You'll pay a premium price to replace that old, hard to find board.

The thing about upgrading older stuff is that it's really easy to build a better system with cheap parts.

You could get an AMD X2, 2Gigs of RAM, and a new AM2 mobo for around $150.00 and it'll seem twice as fast as his old pc.
 
Bodaggit23 said:
I wouldn't waste any money on that old platform. You'll pay a premium price to replace that old, hard to find board.

The thing about upgrading older stuff is that it's really easy to build a better system with cheap parts.

You could get an AMD X2, 2Gigs of RAM, and a new AM2 mobo for around $150.00 and it'll seem twice as fast as his old pc.
Click to expand...

Got any links and/or suggestions? He wants it fixed, and I'm happy to oblige.

Dumb question, but are most mobo mounting locations the same or do they come with adapters/mounting hardware?

I'm a lot better with snowmobiles, lol.
 
Some pre-built PC cases are built in such a fashion that only the original mobo can be used with them, some are not. I'm kind of fuzzy on the details behind this, so don't take my word too strongly, but anything store bought does seem to have a tendency to severely limit your ability to do anything custom with the computer.
 
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