Computer problem suggestions??

[Mercedes Benzene]

I was recently given a fairly new PC by my neighbor.... and I was trying to get it to work but...

When I hook everything up and try to turn it on:

The motherboard and all drives recieve power (which is fine:) ), but there is no response from the hard drive :eek:. Now, I'm no computer expert, but my dad is, and he can't think of what might be wrong with it... hehe.

I was wondering if perhaps someone here had any suggestions. I guarantee that everything is properly hooked up, but the hard drive is not responding (you don't here that normal "booting up" sound), and the screen displays nothing??

-So confused.

[Vagabond -SC2-]

Hey I would unplug all the cards and HD. Remove and reset the RAM. take off everything. Does it have onboard video? if it does remove any video card that is present. Up plug and re plug in the IDE cables, power cables to the mother board. Does the PSU work? Does it have an A drive? if it does leave the HD off and put on the A drive and the RAM -- boot it up and see if it attempts to access the A drive..

 

this is a start... post the type of mobo and PSU and other specs? is there even an operating system on the HD (though you should see/hear something even if not)

[CHADS]

Does anybody know how i can upgrade my laptops graphics as i cant really play all my good games on it ... im new to laptopery?:rose:

[Tormod]

Does anybody know how i can upgrade my laptops graphics as i cant really play all my good games on it ... im new to laptopery?:rose:

 

What is the make and model of your laptop?

[CHADS]

hi tormod

 

its a packard bell easynote R1004 ... celeron m 1.4 ghz

[alexander]

i doubt that you'd be able to upgrade your card, from what i see, it has a graphics card with shared memory, i think that means that it is an onboard one as well, so it is highly inlikely that it is a mini PCI card, hence you probably cant upgrade it, sry dude :warped:

the thinng you can do is throw more ram in the lappy, like another 512 or something, that should make it run a bit better, maybe enough for some of your better games :)

[CHADS]

Oh well ... it only cost me £200 3 months old so icould always sell it and find a more flexible one ... im new to lap tops cheers any way :hyper:

[cwes99_03]

The first and very first thing to do Mercedes is to verify if your BIOS can see the hard drive.

 

What kind of hard disk drive does it have IDE or SATA? You say everything is correctly connected, but IDE drives aren't simply plug into any part of the ribbon and go. Sata drives on the other hand are hard to not connect properly. SCSI drives are the worst though if you don't have your SCSI settings right, it won't recognize the drive. Could be a jumper on the motherboard needs moving, in that case you need to check the MB specs.

Best bet is just to find a disk with a bootable disk on it. This will confirm that everything else is working. Try Knoppix, you can download it off the web for free.

Do you have graphics at all? If not, do you have a dual output graphics card? Possibly not on the right output.

Also had a matrox video card once that required a bios upgrade in order to get the video card to work. Had to throw in an older video card to get the bios to show, then do the bios flash, then put in the new video card.

 

Your description of the problem leaves a lot of back doors. Post some more info and I can help you more.

C