Hey guys, I have an computer that is about 8 years old(ancient I know), that I use as a secondary system. Anyway, I wnet to boot it up, and it made a strange grinding noise for a second, and then did nothing after that. It continues to do the same thing after several attempts, with no screen or anything. DOes anybody have any ideas or how to get it to power up, or what part I need to fix it? I could really use someone's help on this one, as I have several important documents on that computer. If anyone has any ideas, I would really appreciate it. Thanks, Josh

I know this might not be of any assistance, but is there any diskette inside the computer? Or perhaps an USB pen drive? Usually, if such things are plugged into the computer when you turn it up it won't even boot, that has happened to me! Best Regards Deimos AMD ATHLON X2 5200+ 2.6GHz ASUS GeForce 8600GTS ASUS M2N-E SLI MB 2xKingston 1GB DDR2 800

If you have extremely important files on that PC (that haven't been backed up?), I suggest that before you do anything else you physically remove the hard drive, connect it as a slave (or externally) to your other PC and recover your files. Then if you feel comfortable with it, you can start troubleshooting. A Google search for 'PC troubleshooting' should get you some help.

Hey guys, Thanks for your help so far. To deimos, I have no disk or anything in the computer, or any USB pen drive, attatched to it. I would like to see if I could get it to power up first before I remove the harddrive to my other pc. Thanks for the advice so far. Anybody else have any ideas?

You have a hardware problem Thrasher, so don't expect an easy fix. Expect to do some thrashing around to find the problem component. The most likely faulty component is the power supply, so you could 'try' replacing it first. Or you could start disconnecting drives and cards to see if one of them is stopping the motherboard from working. The power supply 'and' motherboard have to be working to get power up. The reason I suggest saving your data first, is because there is always a danger of causing damage (static charge, breaking a pin, etc) to the hard drive when fooling around inside a PC.

Thanks for the response aegis. I will try what you said, about disconnecting the drives and go from there, and also back up the data. Hopefully it won't be too complicated for me. Thanks again

9 times out of 10, removing the harddrive involves disconnecting 2 cables and removing 4/2 screws, quite easy really. A quick search on the internet should procure you a inclosure for your drive which means all you'll have to do to get your data back is plug it in via usb; once you've done that, search this site for "taking ownership" with out the quoats. As far as your hardware problem, if you insist on not removing the drive, at least disconnect the 2 cables from it, most importantly the smaller one; this is because your psu sounds to be unstable - its not a good idea for it to have a connection to a drive with important data on it. Other than that, just follow other peoples advice and if the problem is still existant after a psu replacement then you have a bad motherboard.