Advice urgently needed from computer experts

[BobZ4]

Is the PC a tower type (ie. Does it stand on its side or is it flat on the desk), the reason i ask is that with my Pavilion I had an issue recently where no picture was being displayed and it was beeping. I checked all my memory was correctly seated etc including the CPU but i still had the problem, the hard disk was fine and in the end it turned out to be the graphics card working its self loose over time and countless heating and cooling cycles due to the PC being on its side in tower form.
I reseated the graphics card and presto it was fine again.

I doubt its an overheating issue if the machine does this on a cold start, it could be the power supply though. I would try seating some of the connectors for the Power supply if it isn't the graphics card, obviously observing anti static precautions (wear an anti static band connected to an earth or touching the metal case while it is plugged in an NOT SWITCHED ON).

If it isn't hardware think back to what software you installed prior to the PC crashing, some old versions of McAfee used to cause machines to BSOD and subsequent patches were released to resolve this. Have a look on the HP website and maybe even search in google for the symptoms you describe, most likely someone else will have had this issue before. Some drivers can cause this behaviour also, so it is worth doing a search around.

Actually thinking about this further it does sound like something is loose, i would check my cable connections for the power supply.

 

[ksher]

It is tower type. As people said, I'm going to disconnect/reconnect all cables, cards, and memory, and also clean the dust in the machine.

Thank you for all advice received.

 

[nicko]

while you're doing that, try leaving disconnected anything that you can

e.g.
have you got any expansion cards for extra USB slots, or a Firewire card, or a network card,
or a graphics card upgrade

I've had problems in the past with a dodgy eSata card causing crashes

 

[Breaker]

I've had similar problems with DELLs at work. RAM upgrades with the wrong RAM boards can cause this but the DELLs were hard drives on the way out. Put in new ones and OK now.

 

[Z4 Beemer]

We had a batch of around 30 Dell PC's at work which suffered hard disk failures. With Dells you can run the Dell diagnostic hard disk utility (Ctrl D at switch on I think) that reports back on the status of the drive.

 

[sars]

Have you managed to get this sorted yet ksher?

These are the tricky ones, if your computer is finding a fault during BIOS, this means it could be one of either HDD, RAM, GPU, PSU, CPU or motherboard, I would start by clearing cmos first as this does get corrupted and is an easy no cost fix

Unfortunately there is no method in trying to determine which component it is unless you replace every one in sequence, some are more likely than others to fail, cheap PSU's don't last long and its not an obvious fail either (not like a fuse), and at the other end I have never heard of a CPU failure, they just start to run slower as they get hotter. As it only happens when the computer is cold, I would start with the MB, RAM, HDD, PSU, GPU and then CPU.

TBH its six years old, it has done pretty well, so have some fun and build yourself a new one its a lot easier than you think, ebuyer are pretty good for components, if you do take the plunge make sure you match CPU type with a compatible MB

CPU - £70+
MB - £30+
RAM - £30+
HDD - £30+
GPU - £25+
PSU - £25+
and you already have a case, a Tower I believe, so it will be ATX style motherboard, you really do get what you pay for in components, the more you spend the faster it will perform