Computer Problem

[Jay1b]

I am trying to fix up my old computer for my dad to use, which hasnt been touched for years. However its not working.

Upon booting, it make a long mid pitch beep, followed by 3 short mid pitch beep and finally a loner low pitch beep.

The screen appears to show something like 'Digital Snow', when first booting - after about 3 seconds changing to a screen full of what looks like a defrag table, which changes slightly.

My first instinct was to check the graphics card, this works fine in another system - so i would assume it would be something else.

Any suggestions would be greatfully received.

Thanks.

 

[samsmithnz]

There are so many things that could be wrong, the best thing you could do is start by elimanating as many components as possible.

For example:
-Does the monitor work on another machine? (monitor busted?)
-Does a boot disk work? (Hard disk crash?)
-Can you get into Bios? (Bios broken/ bios battery flat?)

Its about all you can do...

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

You may find a Hardware based forum could be of more help, as Sam said a lot of things could be at fault.

http://www.extremetechsupport.org/forum may be worth a try ( a few of the names from here will be familiar over there as well)

 

[Jay1b]

I eliminated as many things as i could. I tried looking up the POST codes on the NET but i couldnt find one which met my beeps. If you know wot i mean?

I think its probably the motherboard.

 

[irasmith]

This may not be of any help to you, however I thought it worth posting anyway.

If you haven't already done this, you may want to take the various borads and cables apart inside, dust it down real well, and then re-insert the borads and reconnect the cables.

I've had to do this a time or two in order to get a computer that has been sitting idle for long periods of time to come up and get going again.