PC won't start

[sundril]

A friend called me and said her computer wouldn't go past windows 98 opening page for a week, and now it won't even go that far; it only goes to the page with PCI Device listing. She brought it over and I opened the tower and the fan in the power supply was running, but the CPU fan wasn't and everything was black inside with oily grit. I checked the cards and cables and cleaned it inside as much as I could, and the fan started running, but windows still wouldn't go further. I could open BIOS, but not safemode. I tried running the WD utilities disk to test the HD, but it wouldn't run from the floppy; neither would the startup disk or the system disk. I have a windows 98 cd and it wouldn't run either even tho' I switched the setting in BIOS. The computer is an old PC166 with EDO memory and a WD HD. Is it worth taking the HD out and trying another one I have that works? I have some EDO around too and a sound card, but no video card. Or is the computer dead?!

 

[GunDog]

With the CPU fan not running, I would think the CPU is damaged. I would recommend replacing the system.

 

[dpm]

It does sound like the CPU is fried. What does the BIOS autodetect?

 

[masked1]

think its time to get a new PC mate!

 

[Dundain]

Seriously sounds like upgrade time. Your CPU probably isn't completely dead but I'd say if it was running without a fan for a week or more then its probably a tad...addled.

 

[sundril]

Well thanx everyone! I looked at the motherboard hoping I'd notice any burns, but I couldn't find anything. I happened to have an old HD that I knew worked so then I disconnected the one in the tower and connected mine, and it went right into windows. I'm reformatting the computer now and so far it's going fine