Problems With HP Pavilion 520N - - think might be hard drive

specs

hp pavilion 520n
celeron 1.3ghz
60gig hd
512mb ram
everything is onboard

has windows xp professional sp2 (yeah sp2 sucks)

information

it isnt actually my computer, it is my neighbors. my brother was on it and apprently from what he told me the thing just quit on him while he was playing games (online gay games - like collapse). but he is a little kid and doesnt know anything. but as far as i know, it shut off, not going throught shut down process. screen went blank. no error messages, blue screen, ect. when you turn it back on. the computer will turn on. lights will be on, fans dont work (feels like p/s fan is working but doesnt sound like it or look like it.) the hard drive disc are spinning but the monitor isnt picking anything up. doesnt get anywhere. discs arent being used. i thought that it might be the power supply (i wasnt only one, some of my friends backed up my decision), replaced the p/s and that didnt do anything. then my computer did somewhat the same thing. i was playing nfsu2 and it just shut off. then when i turned it back on (overheated so i waited a day before turning it on) but nothing was turning. so i modded a fan into the side of the case for better circulation. then took out battery and turned it on and it worked fine, replaced batter and everything was great. so i tried that with the hp, didnt work. i dont know what is up. we are starting to think that it might be the hard drive, but that still doesnt make any sense with it just qutting like that. and with nothing going on inside kinda makes me wonder if there was a power surge that might have fried a few things....

idk...please help, this computer has my neihbors work on it!

- thanks

 

 

 

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The problem sounds motherboard related, you say the fans are not working, which fans are these? The PSU sounds like it's working, even though you can not tell if the fan for it is working, most likely a silenced type PSU, try holding something light behind it like tissue paper to see whether the fan is working.

It could have been a surge/spike, in which part or all of the motherboard will not function.

It could be heat related in which the CPU has cooked itself, if the CPU had been running overclocked, it'd be best to clock it to normal speed. If the fan for the CPU was not running and there was only a heatsink in place, the CPU would still run, but overtime it would slowly be damaging itself.

To rule out RAM and Video Card (if possible), you should remove them and then power on the computer to see if you can hear any indication from the internal speaker that these components are missing. If there's no indication, then we know the problem lies before these components are checked for.

If there is sound, place the Video Card back in then test again, if there is sound then try the RAM, but if this is the case then the actual problem explained above makes no sense.

How can you tell if there's power being supplied to the motherboard? Some motherboards have an onboard LED light, that switches on whenever it's connected to power. You also say that the lights on the computer light up which suggests it's getting the power from the motherboard.

So should we be examining the CPU? This sounds like the problematic area, unless the motherboard is partially faulty.


Cheers,


MC

P.S. I ignored the Hard Drive problem, since this is after the POST test and is not needed for bare essentials to have a computer running.

 

 

 

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Im pretty shure that this is problem with CPU or memmory. IF that hp won't post (boot) it's probbably because the CPU is dead.

1. IF your memmory is not good then you will hear beep's from that system speaker inside the chasis.
Solution: replace the memory with some other one, just to check if it change the situation. So you can eliminate good components.

2. IF CPU is dead (overheated) then you will hear beep's too (depending on the motherboard) maybe you can't hear anything if it's some specific mainboard, and computer screen would be blank.
Solution: try to find some other CPU (from friend or your own) so you can replace it and check if it works then)

3. IF your mainboard is dead computer won't post too...
Solution: buy a new computer. you will hardly find replacable motherboard, if it's an old computer... maybe in "yellow pages" or some auctions.

I would try with that 2nd. solution. Im pretty sure that's it. Anyway when you find a problem, please check that all fans are working especially the CPU FAN, and PowerSupplyUnit fan.

good luck!

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beginning to think that HP needs to go back to there think tank and re think of what parts they use in there computers. My daughter's hp 230 had a power surge due to lighting in the area. From what I figure is it fried the power supply. For there is no power going to the on/off switch or to the cpu/fan. I tryed a different power supply and the lights and power to the fan worked but nothing else. So it leads me to belive that the power suppy needs to be replaced. For the one I used to test with was from a older computer when the power needed was far lower. Our own hp is a 700n just locks up every now and then for no reason. From what I figure is a custom computer is better than some of these store bought computers. The one in the office I built out of leftover parts and its a old 900 cpu and the hp think its a 2.3 cpu more than likely wronge on it. But the 900 has 192 ram half of the hp but it sure seems twice as fast as the hp.

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