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BruisedQuasar · #1 Post by **BruisedQuasar** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:22 pm

This is a desktop question but I know most members have one and some have a lot of experience with them.

A friend brought his Compaq Presario 5000 over. It suddenly would not work. From what he told me I thought the problem was a dead monitor, backup battery, dead graphics card, or dead hard drive.

I inserted a startup floppy and turned it on. The power light and power box fan came on but my monitor remained black, just as his did. I noticed the floppy drive and hard drive never came on. I figure this is processor or motherboard failure.

I know a dead internal battery can cause weird things to happen but a total system no-go suggests motherboard or processor failure to me. Any thoughts?

#2 Post by **Kyocera** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:29 pm

Possibly the power suppl is faulty. I had a 98 machine a while back that had intermittant issues, put in a real nice power supply and it went away.

Stargate199 · #3 Post by **Stargate199** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:07 pm

I think the mobo is shot. I worked on my grandparents Presario from the same time (I think it was a 5000 too) with the AMD Duron CPU. After doing to upgrades, this very same thing happened. It turned out the motherboard went bad and was not going to work again. They did buy another computer from HP. I personally have had some bad experiences with Compaq computers in the past. To me, their computers do not last very long. (especially the ones with AMD chips)

pianowizard · #4 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:30 pm

Perhaps the memory sticks have gone bad. My P4 desktop computer at work had the same symptoms occasionally and Memtest86 revealed that the memory sticks had problems.

Website · #5 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:42 pm

Reseating the ram might help.

dsigma6 · #6 Post by **dsigma6** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:17 pm

Couldn't everyone just say the same thing and make it easy?

I agree that before jumping the gun on the motherboard, verify the PS.

ronbo613 · #7 Post by **ronbo613** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:31 pm

dsigma6 wrote:Couldn't everyone just say the same thing and make it easy?

OK, it's either the PSU, motherboard, memory or CPU.

Seriously, I would suspect the PSU or motherboard. If you can borrow a power supply and test out the system, you could be sure. Even if the CMOS battery is dead, you should see something.
I had a Presario, it was awful. It died after a few months, they replaced the mobo and it lasted another few months. A Dell Dimension I had died with the same symptoms you described. I figured PSU or mobo, but it was a couple years old so I just got a new computer.

BruisedQuasar · #8 Post by **BruisedQuasar** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:34 am

ronbo613 wrote:
dsigma6 wrote:Couldn't everyone just say the same thing and make it easy?
OK, it's either the PSU, motherboard, memory or CPU.

Seriously, I would suspect the PSU or motherboard. If you can borrow a power supply and test out the system, you could be sure. Even if the CMOS battery is dead, you should see something.
I had a Presario, it was awful. It died after a few months, they replaced the mobo and it lasted another few months. A Dell Dimension I had died with the same symptoms you described. I figured PSU or mobo, but it was a couple years old so I just got a new computer.

First I want to thank you everyone for your quick replies. Ronbo, My thinking exactly. I have never seen cmos batt failure, whereby the display does not flicker, just stays black and no moving part initiates. Weird things happen but things do happen, in my experience.

The power supply opinion got my attention when one post mentioned intermittant. That suggestion caused me to recall that the power on light does blink on and off. So, a FAILING, but not totally failed PS can result in the hard drive & floppy not initializing at all?

What are the chances of motherboard failure interfering with PS functioning properly?

The owner is a former foster child with two nice school age girls. Money is a factor. I would not mess with a Compaq but the Presario 5000 seems to be an unusual series. 4 to 6 year old units sell well on eBay. I am trying to buy a used one but the clowns keep ending auctions paying much more than any five year old desktop is worth!

The HP Compaq today is a junk department store 'puter, but earlier days their design and quality was superior to IBM. Compaq was the laptop king and their units commanded an insane price tag.

Again, thank you everyone for sharing your valuable experience and advice!

ronbo613 · #9 Post by **ronbo613** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:38 am

In my experience, a dead or dying CMOS battery will cause trouble with the settings of your BIOS and cause random problems, but your computer should at least boot, most likely at the default BIOS settings. Probably the classic sign of a dead CMOS battery is that the time is not correct.
It is possible for a defective PSU to damage the motherboard, but not too likely. Power supply failure symptoms are varied and random, so that kind of behavior is usually the sign of a bad PSU. If the PSU was defective, the problems might be more dramatic(like smoke and a burning smell), then you might do some damage. Your situation sounds more like the PSU is dying of old age. They just wear out after a period of time.
If the computer owner is a little short on funds, what I would suggest is to take the computer to a computer shop and ask them if they could hook it up to their power supply. If it fires up, you know it's the PSU. If the PSU is bad, you could probably get a generic replacement pretty cheaply. Easy to replace, all you need is a phillips screwdriver. If the computer shop guys are cool, they will test it for free. Take those two young ladies with you and tell them to stand there and look really sad.

Dngrsone · #10 Post by **Dngrsone** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:53 am

I agree with Ronbo-- PSU most likely cause of failure, followed by the motherboard.

CMOS battery would not cause those symptoms, nor would a RAM problem.

That is a chance that the PSU could have caused damage to other components, but the chance is fairly small.

covertash · #11 Post by **covertash** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:40 pm

Dngrsone wrote:I agree with Ronbo-- PSU most likely cause of failure, followed by the motherboard.

CMOS battery would not cause those symptoms, nor would a RAM problem.

That is a chance that the PSU could have caused damage to other components, but the chance is fairly small.

Agreed.

Bad CPU and RAM would not allow you to POST, but you should see something. Bad PSU or motherboard should give you the symptoms you describe.

Fortunately, the ~200 Watt (or less) power supplies needed to run those computers are fairly cheap. You shouldn't have to pay more than $40 locally, and that is actually on the high side. If a store allows you to return it, buy one to test out to see if it does the trick. Whether if your friend decides to keep it or not afterwards can be decided then.

#12 Post by **Kyocera** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:12 pm

Bruised I think I have a power supply laying around somewhere that I would be glad to ship to you. I'll test it out tomorrow night when I get time.

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