Reviving old pc

[gedis]

lads thanks for help with building my computer, now i face new chalenge, my old computer dell about 6 years old(cost around 4k at the time) is still out of action and my women and son(nearly 6) keeps harrasing me to fix it, so my son can be givin me extra hasle on my days off, its a dell unit about six year old, single core procesor pentium4, turboed to 3.8(came that way from dell usa) nearly sure its 3.2 or 3.06 originaly, 1gb of ram(2x512mb, 4200u samsung) and x800 platinium edition graphics card, probably all that gives no help as i built that online my self, but it dont start anymore it doesnt even go to bios front pannel code is 4+3 that means ram problem(according to dell), i changed ram from my friends computer same 4200 but kingston make and same code comes up, when my pc ram fitted to my friends computer it wont fire up, so it sounds like dud ram(from my pc), but why it wont fire up with good identical ram from other pc?

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi gedis

some things to try

If you are overclocking CPU disable this, try resetting cmos jumper (with mains power cable disconnected)

check the 12V connector (4 or 8pin) to motherboard is making good contact (remove & reconnect)
( I once found a bad connection had burnt the 12V plug requiring replacing the 12V plug)

Use a multimeter or voltmeter to check 5V & 12V at a molex plug (5.0+-0.25V / 12+- 0.5V)

Look at condition of capacitors adjacent to the processor socket (if bulging or leaking probably fatal or un-economic to repair)

Dell website has very good instructions for dismantling their PC's and showing location of components

regards
Mike Barnes

 

[dummos]

if your friends pc wont boot with your ram then it is fair to say your ram is to blame but there may be a motherboard problem still that has fried your ram the make of the ram shouldn't make a difference as long as the frequency is is below that of the specs of the mobo i would definatly reset the bios to make sure your ram is not getting overvolted but to me it sounds like it may be a dead motherboard given it's age it doesnt sound unreasonable.

 

[harna]

Hi gedis

If the pc has been as heavily OCed as you think it has been, it's been done by raising the Front Side Bus Speed. A side affect of this is to accelerate not only the CPU, but all other components on the PCI bus including the memory. The initial RAM was probably cerified to run at this higher speed and had subsequently been affected by what is called electron migration, to the point that it will no longer POST.

The RAM from your friends pc, although similar probably will not run at the OCed speed of the pc. The trick may be to also borrow his CPU and enter the BIOS and set the PC back to stock specifications. Resetting the BIOS may do the job as dummos pointed out, but if it came from the manufacturer in that state then there is every chance that they have fiddled with the BIOS code, so that the pc does not inadvertently reset itself to spec via power problem or battery dropout.

 

[gedis]

yes it came that way from manufacturer, yes i will try to reset the jumper(must find out exactly how) as for power, cpu fan working, graphics card fan working also hard drives getting warm so thei working too,procesor rad gets hot very fast thought