Please help me troubleshoot a PC

[ibex333]

I'm doing this for a friend, because his computer died yesterday and he has no access to the internet and no one else to help.

Anyway, his PC is very similar to mine in the sig. Some minor differences, like 8600GT video card, a newer version of the mobo(same brand), a slightly better, faster CPU. e4300 I think...

Anyway, he was playing a game yesterday when his computer just suddenly turned off. (instantly)

When he turned it on again, he noticed no video signal. His CPU fan was NOT spinning. He went out and got another fan, installed, and now it's spinning fine, but otherwise, NO CHANGE. The screen is black. He can hear his DVD drive spinning up, and HD working... After a minute or so, he can hear the PC suddenly restart itself automatically, and keep going in loops like that.

I told him to get any video card he can get his hands on to eliminate that possibility. If his video card died, he'll know when he installs another one.

Now, I'm thinking there's little chance that his CPU or the Mobo fried, because these two parts are fairly resilient and loaded with fail safe features. My gigabyte mobo shut my PC down several times to prevent damage to CPU when I foolishly OC'd too high in the past...

So I'm thinking that the culprit is either PSU or the Video card... (especially since he was playing a video game when this happened) Am I right? am I wrong? Can you give us some advice? What should we do next?

 

[Blain]

Sounds video card or PS related to me.
Start some swapping to find out which.

1st swap = PS
2nd swap = video card
Reason = If his PS is acting up, you don't want your video card killed by it.

 

[Denithor]

Blain +1

Although it's also a bit disturbing that his CPU fan wasn't spinning the first time he restarted.

 

[nineball9]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Blain +1

Although it's also a bit disturbing that his CPU fan wasn't spinning the first time he restarted.

Yeah, the fact that replacing the CPU fan worked is disturbing. Perhaps the original fan's connector was jostled when you started playing with it. I'm wondering if the original fan had indeed failed in which case the CPU would have overheated. If that was the case, sometimes the CPU will simply shutdown, other times it will fail.

Good luck!

 

[ibex333]

Update: Installed another video card, still no difference. Then removed one stick of ram and... System booted into windows! Tried again with both RAM sticks - system doesn't boot... Why it didnt even show a POST error message with a working v-card and faulty ram, I have no idea... Anyway, it looks like both the old video card and the ram stick died. The cpu seems perfectly fine, running at 29 degrees. My friend will be buying a new video card and another stick of RAM.

Thanx to everyone who posted.