Packard bell imedia x2414 problems with start

[burntwire]

Hi,

My computer has suddenly started switching off about 5 seconds after pressing the power on button.

I have unplugged everything , monitor, keyboard, mouse, dvd drive, hard drive etc etc and it still does it, there is a plug that goes into the mother board with 2 black and 2 yellow wires and when I unplug this it appears to stay on!!!!!

Unfortunately I use this computer for work and need to access information on the hard drive, when I tried to put the hard drive (Seagate barracuda 7200.10) into another computer the plugs and lead are different.

my computer knowledge is very limited!!!!

Can anyone help?????

its running vista if that helps

thanks bw

 

[Kaymo]

When you say that when you unplug the plug that goes into the mother board with 2 black and 2 yellow wires, it stays on do you mean that the computer works with this cable disconnected? If yes, what is not working when this plug is disconnected?

 

[burntwire]

Hi,

Sorry for the poor explanation, when the black and yellow plug isn't connected the fan runs constantly and does not cut off however the computer will not 'power up' as such and nothing comes up on the screen

with the lead in it just cuts off after a few seconds

thanks

 

[Kaymo]

Hi,
Not sure if I fully understand this yet, but you could just be disconnecting a plug that is connected to a thermocouple for the fan that would normally switch the fan off when not needed, I.e. it might not be related to the issue.

If you just want to get the data from the drive, you can buy hard drive enclosures that would then connect to another pc through usb.

If you want to resolve the start-up issue with the pc, the first thing to do is see if it gets as far as loading the bios. The bios is loaded from the motherboard before it's starts to load Windows from the hard drive. When you start up the pc instructions should flash on the screen giving the option to load into the bios. If it's not getting as far as this, and from what you describe it sounds like that is the case, then there is a fault on the motherboard and its unlikely you will be able to do anything other than replace the motherboard.

If it does get past the bios option then it's probably a fault with the hard drive. If this is the case you could possibly boot to a usb our CD and if your lucky and its only the boot sectors on the hard drive that are faulty you might be able to recover the data that way.

Hope this helps.

 

[CylonRaider]

Sounds like the CPU fan has packed up or the heat-sink is full of gunge.

Get a thin paint brush and clean the heat-sink fins out

[Edit]

It can also be the psu giving up

 

[burntwire]

Thank you for your answers,

ok, I will try again!!

when I turn the power on it cuts off after a few seconds and doesn't even try to power up the screen,

I have unplugged harddrive, screen mouse, disc drive etc but it still cuts out after a few seconds

when I unplug the black and yellow plug it doesn't cut off and the fan stays running constantly, however it still will not power up the screen.

I would like to fix it if possible as a motherboard is only 35 pounds on ebay.

however my only other computer is windows 7 and the hp is running vista, does this mean I can still get the info from the hard drive via an enclosure

thanks bw

 

[Kaymo]

The different operating systems shouldn't make any difference if it is only files you are accessing from the hard drive.

Cylon makes a valid point about the power supply, you could probably check this with a volt meter if you have one, to see if the voltage remains constant after start-up. Your fan is obviously not the problem, it's worth checking the heatsink as Ceylon says and in general everything seems clean. After that there is not much left outside of the cpu and motherboard, and the motherboard is the cheapest option between the two.

 

[Astra99]

The 4-pin black and yellow is the secondary 12v connector from the PSU to the motherboard. IIRC it is used by the processor, so if it is not connected, the machine cannot boot. From what you describe I am pretty certain the power supply is up the creek.

You comment about the hard drive connectors being different on your machine and another that you tried implies that yours is IDE (40-pin long connecter two rows of 20 pins) and the other SATA (7 pin using a moulded plug) (or vice-versa) and the power connecters are probably different as well.