[GovtCheese]

Okay, I don't know exactly what my wife's computer specs are. However, I'm wondering if someone might be able to help me out anyways.

First off, whenever she turns the computer on, it only actually "starts" one out of every 10 times or so. When it fails, the lights come on but nothing comes up on the monitor, no bios load screen or nothing. Then, when XP begins to boot up, it keeps bringing up this blue screen that says "checking File system on C:, one of your disks needs to be checked for consistency". And will freeze whenever it gets to the end of the file scan... However if you skip the scan disk, it loads up XP very slowly. Once it does load up, every click of the mouse seems to take about 20 seconds for the computer to perform the action.

One thing to note, her USB ports have all gone "bad", one by one... Anytime you plug something into them, the computer freezes and won't come back on until you unplug the device. There's a faint click, however I can't tell exactly where it's coming from... It could be the mobo, it could be the hard drive. I don't really know.

Anyways, this computer is basically useless right now and I have no idea what to do with it. Of course, since it's my wife's computer, she continues to nag at me every day to try and fix her computer, and is quite grumpy about the situation. Please, help me figure this out so I can just fix the stupid thing and get some peace and quiet!!!

Edited by GovtCheese, 17 November 2007 - 02:28 PM.

[Advertisements]

well...by your descriptions....it COULD be the motherboard....there's nothing on a motherboard that will click though...no real moving parts....the click is more likely coming from your hard drive...or your PSU....i'd like to suspect your hard drive due to the "checking File system on C:, one of your disks needs to be checked for consistency" message...HOWEVER this could also be comming up because the system is booting up to a certain level then going back down because of the PSU....a faulty PSU could also be causing your USB issues....if the PSU is failing or HORRIBLY under powered...then it COULD be causing USB faults

can you boot into bios (usually f2 or del during bootup) and look for a section about "Computer health" or something to that effect? the page in question should list temperatures and voltages....if you can find that info can you post it in your next reply?

[dsenette]

well...by your descriptions....it COULD be the motherboard....there's nothing on a motherboard that will click though...no real moving parts....the click is more likely coming from your hard drive...or your PSU....i'd like to suspect your hard drive due to the "checking File system on C:, one of your disks needs to be checked for consistency" message...HOWEVER this could also be comming up because the system is booting up to a certain level then going back down because of the PSU....a faulty PSU could also be causing your USB issues....if the PSU is failing or HORRIBLY under powered...then it COULD be causing USB faults

can you boot into bios (usually f2 or del during bootup) and look for a section about "Computer health" or something to that effect? the page in question should list temperatures and voltages....if you can find that info can you post it in your next reply?

[Dngrsone]

I'm thinking PSU myself. Have you added any additional devices lately?

[GovtCheese]

I just got back to checking this, and oddly enough, when I went to go into the BIOS settings to check the voltage levels for you, I couldn't even get the computer to start at all...

I'm betting this is a power supply issue, I'll post here again whenever I get the chance to get another PSU and install it.

[dsenette]

let us know what you come up with

[GovtCheese]

Well I found a spare PSU sitting around out in the shed, I installed it and voila, it works just like it should again.

Thanks for once again saving me a buttload of time and hassle trying to solve this dilemma!