Daughter Has Computer Problems

drwho · Apr 10, 2005, 09:39 AM

My oldest daughter is away attending college at the moment and the other day her computer started giving her problems. Last Thursday when she went to turn it on in the morning it would get no further than the post screen, she said she was getting some message about a boot disk. Then latter in the same day when she tried it again, it would start for a second and then just shut off. Her computer specs are below (as best as I can remember them)

Generic Case
Barton XP 2500+ processor
Generic heatsink and fan
Asrock K7S41GX motherboard
512 mb of memory
Two optical drives (DVD player and CDR burner)
Not sure of the size of the PSU
WD 40 GB HDD

My daughter told me that after the second time she booted up her computer that it would start up, but then it shut off right away again, and also after shut down again it was making a clicking sound. I can only guess what the problem is, being over two hundred miles away, but it sounds to me like it might be either the PSU went bad or maybe her HDD is now defective. Does this description of my daughter's computer problem suggest anything to anybody. Any sugestions that anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated. LOL, at least it's not me having the computer problems this time.

drwho

Nymins · Apr 10, 2005, 10:08 AM

to me it sounds like a more of a hardware problem than software. the clicking sound is very strange as well. i agree with you saying that it could be a defective hdd, cause i had the same problems and i reformatted and it solved it. but since she is at college, wiping the hdd is a pretty bad thing, as she will lose all her work :/ . i would try a new hdd in her comp and see what happens.

nitrousoxide52 · Apr 10, 2005, 10:57 AM

Sounds like dust got in the harddrive, when dust gets in the harddrive because it is spinning so fast, it can bounce around and create clicking sounds, it also disrupts data transfer, that may be your problem, that may not be try having her swap out that HDD with another, or have her RMA it.

drwho · Apr 10, 2005, 11:38 AM

One thing I forgot to mention was that about a week and a half ago, my daughter had a similiar problem, where she couldn't get her computer to boot up. Her whole dormitory floor has been having problems with there computers getting real slow and freezing up, at that time I assumed it was a problem with some kind of virus and sent her all the installations disks for her computer to reinstall windows. She had help from a friend who ended up using a boot disk to get to reinstall XP Home on her computer. That lasted for about a week and a half, now she has the problems I've already described. It's beginning to sound more and more like a defective HDD. Oh, by the way, thanks for your help guys, I appreciate.

drwho

Dark Lord · Apr 10, 2005, 12:12 PM

i had an older hard drive die in my system about a year ago, and it sounds alot like whats happening with that system. some times it would start, some times it would actually work for awhile, but most times it never worked and made a horrible clicking sound.
i was lucky enough that i could transfer MOST of everything to another harddrive. some of the stuff was so far currupted that it couldnt be saved.

Robert McClelland · Apr 10, 2005, 05:19 PM

Blow the system out next time

nitrousoxide52 · Apr 10, 2005, 05:22 PM

It's not even from a dusty system though, if one speck of dust gets on the HDD disk, it will ruin the whole thing, could have been defective from the maker or some how the disk cover came very slightly loose, and let that deadly speck of dust in.

Logla · Apr 10, 2005, 05:42 PM

More often than not though, the HDDs fail from something other than dust.

The dust inside a drive scenario is something that rarely happens on HDDs younger than 10 years old.
The only reason for dust to get inside an HDD is for the gasket seal on the drive to fail and like I say, that is unlikely to happen on a drive less than 10 year old.

The more common reason for a drive to fail is it being moved around often (weakening the components of the drive) or for it to be near a magnetic force such as a tv or a large speaker as is temprature. Dust damage is extremely rare though.

drwho · Apr 10, 2005, 07:41 PM

Well the mystery deepens, my daughter just called me awhile ago and said her computer is up and running again. I still have my doubts. I still thinking that there is something wrong with her HDD. Are there any ways that she could run some tests to find out? My daughter has XP Home SP2 on her computer.

drwho