my pc appears to be dead

[retardedhell]

Right, after watching the movie se7en (which might I add was very good) late last night, my dear old mum decided to come into my room and turn my pc off without shutting down.

She turned the power off at the back >:(

Now upon trying to turn it on today it came up with the message "grub 1.5 loading.......error" and didn't go any further.

And now for some wierd and wanderful reason it wont show anything on the screen what so ever. No bleeps from the mother board, no BSOD, nothing.

Is it completely dead? Or is there something I can do?

[Flipcaveman12]

Personally. If you are not getting any BIOS error code beeps, I would say that your motherboard or possibly your PSU is damaged. Try to borrow another PSU and try starting your pc with it (at least to eliminate that possiblity). Another thing to try is removing any add-on cards (including graphics) and detaching your drives from the motherboard, then try starting your PC (I have seen faulty hard drives cause whats happening to your pc before).

[CodingTim]

Sometimes when a PC makes no signs of life whatsoever, you may have to reset the BIOS by taking the case off and moving a jumper between two sets of pins (you'd probably have to look in your motherboard manual to find out which pins reset the CMOS, and remember to put the jumper back where it was afterwards, or else it probably won't boot!).

Once or twice my PC has seemed entirely dead, but resetting the BIOS has fixed it nicely.

However, it will put back all the BIOS's settings to the defaults: if you have a custom boot order you'll have to re-do that.

PS. I accept no responsibility if this wrecks your PC - it shouldn't, but don't sue me please :p

[retardedhell]

Don't worry, tis sorted now. I did a search of the error I got and it turned out that for some reason my linux installation had become corrupt and wouldn't load up the GRUB program that allows me to choose between windows and linux.

So I just reinstalled Linux and all seems to be well.....for no :|

/edit: and yeah i reset the CMOS aswell just to be sure :) Being a shuttle pc it has a handy button on the back to reset it rather than an "open up and search with a torch for it then hope thats the right one" job :D

[kotu]

Sometimes when a PC makes no signs of life whatsoever, you may have to reset the BIOS by taking the case off and moving a jumper between two sets of pins (you'd probably have to look in your motherboard manual to find out which pins reset the CMOS, and remember to put the jumper back where it was afterwards, or else it probably won't boot!).
Just a quick note on this: turn off (or unplug) the PSU first!! This had me very confuzzled for a few days once! Lol

[Timmeh]

The other way to reset the CMOS is to unplug the computer at the mains, take the mainboard's battery out (it's the same as a watch battery... there'll be a little metal pin you can push to pop it out), hold down the power button for a few seconds (with the power still disconnected), then plug everything back in. Some motherboards don't have the pins, thought it'd be helpful for reference :)

[kotu]

......hold down the power button for a few seconds (with the power still disconnected).....
I never heard of that before. Just removing the battery should suffice. :confused:

[Timmeh]

I never heard of that before. Just removing the battery should suffice. :confused:

Nope. On most computers, you'll find that, even turned off, pressing the power button'll make lights flash and fans spin for half a second. Need to get rid of that little bit of stored power as it'll keep powering the CMOS for a time.