Girlfriend killed my computer, here are some questions about fixing it

JakeT. · Apr 27, 2007

This is actually a 2 part question.

First off, my girlfriend got an older computer and was hooking it up. Her mom had given her this 20 lb power strip/surge protector and she was plugging her in and it worked fine. She then plugged mine in and said she immediately smelt something burning.

She tried to reboot but it wouldn't start up. It hasn't started up since then. For the first few tries, I'd get a green light and it looked like it might be trying but since then, nothing.

I've thoroughly cleaned out all the fans and made sure all connections were good. I tried to boot with my XP disk but nothing.

Is there anything else to try here? Would it be the mother board or the hard drive that is messed?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Alright, the second part of the question I think I know the answer to but just to be sure.

I had a EMachine (cheapo) that had a very fast processor and a ton of RAM.

Any chance I can swap some of these parts into her 500 MHZ Celeron that I'm currently crawling around the web with?

She has a RAM upgrade but everything else is so outdated I even watch videos without it being all choppy.

Thanks guys.

Presto · Apr 28, 2007

I know next to nothing about computers, but I would guess your power supply has been zapped.

Exchange · Apr 29, 2007

Your first question

First off, my girlfriend got an older computer and was hooking it up. Her mom had given her this 20 lb power strip/surge protector and she was plugging her in and it worked fine. She then plugged mine in and said she immediately smelt something burning.

She tried to reboot but it wouldn't start up. It hasn't started up since then. For the first few tries, I'd get a green light and it looked like it might be trying but since then, nothing.

I've thoroughly cleaned out all the fans and made sure all connections were good. I tried to boot with my XP disk but nothing.

Is there anything else to try here? Would it be the mother board or the hard drive that is messed?
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Hi,

In order to determine what components on your computer is dead, you will have to observe the behavior when trying to boot your computer.

1. If you push the power button to turn it on, does any light come on such as the power light on the button? If yes, your powersupply is still good.

2. Do you see anything on the screen? If yes, your video card, ram, CPU, and motherboard are good. If you do not see anything on the screen, then this is where it gets tricky. There is no way to determine either bad video card, ram, CPU, or motherboard unless you swap these parts to another computer and test.

3. If you are lucky to get this far to question #3, it could be the harddrive if you boot your computer and see the BIOS (black screen with white text until Windows XP loads).