Help - I've killed my computer

[Lid]

My PC was made at the end of 1998. IT's 350 Mhz Pentium II with 320 Mb RAM running Windows 98. About 6 months ago the CD drive stopped working.

 

I finally ordered a brand new Liteon CD-RW DVD ROM combi drive which arrived this morning. Tonight I have tried to fit it and I seem to have bust my PC. I've had to come to work to type this!

 

I know very little about the internals of PC's, but here's what happened.

 

I carefully removed the cables from the old drive and put the new one in its place. One mistake I made was that I set the jumper on the new CD-RW drive to master, whilst the original CD drive was set to slave.

 

When I switched it on, the PC would not boot up. No beebs or BIOS even. I then realised the master/slave thing might be wrong and so changed the jumper round, but no change. So I put the old drive back in, but this hasn't helped either.

 

Here's what happens when I switch on or press the reset button. (NB I have a LCD flat screen monitor).

 

1. Switch on or press reset button

2. Monitor displays 'No signal' message for a few seconds, as normal and then goes blank.

3. CD drive light flashes a few times and then the hard drive access light comes on and stays on.

4. Nothing else happens, no disc noises, nothing ever displayed on the screen. Just a dead PC with the power supply fan running and the hard disc access light on.

 

5. It completely ignores the floppy drive if I put a disc in it and try to start up again.

 

So please, please can some-one tell me what's happened and how to fix it. I was very careful and don't think I touched any other part of the inside of the PC! Thanks.

 

[ 22. June 2004, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: Lid ]

[jeepster]

you've killed it

[northern mark]

Have you checked the cables to the hard drive etc?

Just reread your post, try the cables to your floppy as well

Hope this is of some help

Mark

 

[ 22. June 2004, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: northern mark ]

[Lid]

Thanks for the ideas, but it ignores the floppy completely if I put a disc in it, bootable or otherwise.

 

There's no BIOS load or beebs or anything when I switch it on!

 

I checked all the IDE cables I could and they seem fine.

 

[ 22. June 2004, 10:54 PM: Message edited by: Lid ]

[Si...]

Try clearing the CMOS (usually removing the jumper and putting it in the clear place the putting it back to the original place) or if the mobo hasn`t got a CMOS jumper, remove the battery and leave 10 minutes. replace battery and connect everything back up.

 

On start up enter the BIOS (key F8 on some mobos) and set the drives, time, date etc

 

restart and try that

 

[ 23. June 2004, 03:03 AM: Message edited by: Si... ]

[rickster]

we got to go back to step one here, when you opened the case to take the old one out is it possible you knocked one of the power cables to the motherboard?

Is the ribbon lead the one you took from the cd rom in the right way the red side of it must go to pin 1 on the cd rom, check the cable to the hard drive as well. Another thing did you keep 1 hand on the case all the time it was open?

[Lid]

Hi folks. I tried clearing the CMOS, but no luck.

 

Rickster, I don't think I knocked out a power cable to the Motherboard. When I freed the drive, I slightly pulled the some of the power cables, but it wasn't very hard and everything appears to be well connected, although I haven't actually opened up the power supply to check the connections at that end.

 

Ribbon cables are all the right way up, and no I am afraid I didn't do anything special about earthing myself. I never have before so have completely forgotten it is necessary. I hope I haven't electrocuted the board though?!

 

I've made up my mind to get a new PC now, but I forgot to do my incremental backups of my files and so I've got to get at my hard drive somehow, plus it was a perfectly good PC and I'd like to fix it if I can.

 

[ 23. June 2004, 09:48 PM: Message edited by: Lid ]

[rickster]

DO NOT OPEN THE POWER SUPPLY you will end up killing yourself. I cant see replacing a cdrom will kill the computer, i have done this many times on my systems and customer systems try pushing all the leads down on the mother board esp those that goto cdrom and hard drives as these come out very easy. When you cleared the cmos did you change the jumper over then switch it on, replace the jumper and switch it back on?

 

if looking for a new pc check out comet this weekend they have a system in there for around 400 thats not to bad

 

[ 23. June 2004, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: rickster ]

[Lid]

Hooray - I've fixed it.

 

My CPU does not have any clips to hold it and is right near the CD Drive and all the power cable bundles. Moving the CD Drive must have dislodged it slightly. I reseated it and now it's working again.

 

Thanks

[rickster]

good to hear m8