computer won't start

a friend of mine has a Packard Bell..and it will not boot or the fan won't run, or show that there is power going to it...she had a computer guy look at it and he just told her it was the hard drive, without even looking at it..i kind of think it is the power supply..it is dead in the water..she paid alot of money for it when it was new and it didn't have much use..any idea, what order to look..

thanks for any ideas

Ron J. Smock

 

Have you got a spare power supply, or borrow one, to try in your friends computer? Alternatively you remove the hard drive and try in another computer, just to rule it out as being bad. Also make sure the on switch is not bad and that the wires to the motherboard have not come loose.

 

If it does "nothing "...no lights flash, no fans start...I would agree with you that it is the PSU.

Disconnect the HDD, if that was the problem you would still be able to get to the BIOS settings or boot from a startup floppy.

Matt

 

I agree ----the puter will still try to boot , the fan will come on , and if the hard drive is bad ---you'll get an error message at the boot screen . The power supply unit is most likely the culpret, but just to check an assumption ---is there a little black switch on the back of this puter and is it on ---and is the voltage setting still on 110 Volts instaed of 220 volts ?????