PC trying to turn itself on i hve a hard drive light flashing & power light flashing when the PC is turned off. PC wont start up, and the only way to stop the lights flashing and fans wherrrrrring is to unplug it at the back. seems like its trying to turn itself on. can this damage the hard drive? i have loads of photos i want to keep on it. also, to fix the problem is it a power unit i require?
could be PSU fault, could be motherboard fault. with the power lead in, keep your finger on the power button for atleast 10 seconds - does it stay off?
is this safe to try? the second i plug it in, HDD + Power lights flicker, and the fans try to start up.. i'm really really scared of damaging my un-backed up HDD. Hundreds of photos and loads of music on it.
Thankfully no, but as the computer was bought 3 and a half years ago, i may not be able to source the correct motherboard to work with the RAM. New motherboard = New RAM and so on, so might as well buy a new Dell. Gonna see if I can actually find the motherboard first though.
If you open up the machine the board name and model should be printed on the pcb.. Failing that just list your cpu type here and I'll find a suitable board for ya..
If I'm still able to get ahold of RAM for my other box (A 7 year old Pentium II) from ebuyer then there's no reason why you can't get yours A replacement board and RAM for a machine of that age will be dead easy to find on ebay or ebuyer.
Dabs.com had it for £33, + £6 postage and it arrived this morning. I ordered it at 6pm last night - how quick is that? Standard postage too, I didn't pay the tenner extra it was asking. thank you for all help
im gonna throw a proper nikki ITS BOTH PSU AND MOTHERBOARD :'( PLUS the motherboard sent wouldnt detect HDD, CD/DVD Romor Floppy drives. He's having a mare.
Fear not, young nass, if your PC is a P3 a PSU from here should do the job and won't break the bank The 300W should do the job nicely (depends on your CPU speed) and the most it will cost is a tenner including postage. If the board is borked it's not going to detect anything, but that doesn't mean they don't work. I've had two motherboards go pop now due to PSU failure and in both cases the hard drive and the like were ok, it just seems to be the motherboard and RAM that goes pop (they both use some of the lowest voltages so it follows that they're more vulnerable to damage when something like this happens).
