Computer Running, not booting up

[Cisage]

Hey folks... Hope you had a great summer!
My mother's computer doesn't beep when I turn it on. I hear the power, the fan blows, the power button light is on and hard drive light is flashing, but no boot commands or anything. Monitor works, all the connections is tight. Please don't tell me it's the hard drive?? :(

If that is the case.... what do you think of the Seagate hard drive 80 BG 7200prm? or should I go for 5600?

Thanks for your support and advice.

Cisage :(

[Murf]

If your saying that the computer powers up, you hear the hard drive spinning, the lights on the key board flash, the hard drive light comes on, the floppy light comes on, the cdrom light comes on, you can hear the fan running, but have no picture. Tested monitor on another computer, so it's good.

RIGHT

Then it is either bad memory or the video card is gone south. If your using on-board video and not a card, then it's the motherboard. If all of the above is true then I would suspect memory. A bad hard drive will not prevent a picture on the monitor. Open case, more then one memory stick, remove them put one in, boot, then another, until you find the bad one.

[Cisage]

Thanks Murf... Will check it out and then get back to you on the report. :)
Cisage

[Cisage]

Hey Murf,
I took out the memory card from one slot to the next slot over. It worked! yeah. :thumbsup: I have a question now... if that one slot is bad, it is no use to put a new in there? ~just wondering~ Thanks again for all your support and advice! Will be back soon :pleased:

Cisage

[Murf]

It is probably not the slot but the memory chip itself is bad.

One way to make sure is go HERE (http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp) download and run Windows Memory Tester. I have used it and it will identify if the memory chip is bad. MemTester (http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/memtester/) is also a good one.

However, if it will not boot with the memory in it then the above programs are useless.

Lets say you have 2 memory sticks in. You took out 1 and computer booted OK. Now take the one out that the computer booted OK, put in it's place the one you took out. (SAME SLOT), if it doesn't boot BAD MEMORY STICK You can do this if you have 3, 4 memory sticks.

The slot that the memory fits into generally will not go bad, the memory stick itself will. Memory prices are really low now, so if you isolate that it is the memory module, then you can replace it.

I have a MEMORY GUIDE (http://members.cox.net/joemurphy/memory.htm) in Murf's Garage.

If you post your computer spec's Brand and Model we can advise on the memory. or you can use Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/) to find the right memory.