# After shutdown, computer won't start (fan runs abnormally fast).



## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

Hello, I'm having a major problem with my pc & hopefully someone can help or at least diagnose what's wrong. I'm not very computer literate,(especially concerning hardware), so please bear with me.

SPECS:
HP Pavillion AMD Athlon 64x2 dual processor 4200+ 2.20ghz 960mb ram

The problem is basically when I shutdown the pc, it won't start up again with the power switch (green led in back stays on). The only way I can get it to boot up again is to unplug the psu, wait for the green light to turn off, then plug back in. If I recall correctly, this used to work all the time so I didn't give it a second thought. Eventually this method stopped working all together so I gave up on this pc, and just used an old crappy dell I had.

NOTE: While I say it stopped working, this is technically incorrect, since it was obviously doing something when it powered up?!?

Upon startup the fan would run at an abnormally, fast/loud speed, but the screen always stayed black. However, everything else seemed functional; cd/dvd would open close, hard drive sounds like it was working normally, no beeping of any sorts...etc.

So as I mentioned, this pc just sat around gathering dust for a good 6 months or so, until yesterday! I was just bored so I decided to mess around with and to my amazement...it worked!!

Now I'd like to go through what I did since I really have no clue what I did & why it's working. While it was unplugged I just started fumbling about on the inside only touching things that I know a little about. Basically I just unplugged & re-plugged everything that I could: HD, memory sticks, cpu fan, that little battery thingy, cd/dvd & pretty much anything that I could unplug and not forget where it went. I also cleaned the 3 fans the best i could.

So now my pc works fine, fast as ever! All good.....until I turned it off last night . Now I have the same problem mentioned above with only the fan running at high speed when I turn on. I literally spent like 2 hours turning this thing on/off to no avail until I tried something new...I think??
I unplugged the smaller of the two cords that goes from the hd to the mb, form the black plug-in to the other 3 surrounding plug-ins and to my surprise the blue one worked & and I'm up and running currently.

One more thing...I turned the pc off/on and it worked 3 times in a row while plugged into the blue thingy (never even worked twice in a row prior), but I don't wanna push my luck and turn it off again until I have some handle of what is going on!

Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

BRGDS
MOE M.


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## pvo01 (Oct 10, 2008)

when you took out the cpu fan, did you re-aply the thermal heat Arctic Silver 5 back to the cpu?


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

No, I haven't applied any kind of gel. Removing the fan was one of the newer things I did because I was afraid I'd mess something up. Although the problem always remained the same before or after I played around with the fan.

BRGDS
MOE M.

I was going to try switching the psu from my old dell to the hp, but it didnt have the right cable for the hd. While I was doing that I noticed that the rating on the dell psu outlet read 10a 125v & the hp psu is 15a 250v. The power cord I've been using for both pcs reads 10a 125v....could this be a/the problem. I coulda swore this power cord was the one that came with the hp, since i cant find any other cords in my house, but it matches the dell psu so i could def be wrong.

Anyone have any expertise with this sorta thing?

BRGDS
MOE M.


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## pvo01 (Oct 10, 2008)

i am not to make any answer here, but my recommendation is that you should look at the CPU ussage for now, and see if it ever reach high, like 100 or 90. if it does, then you are in trouble. post back a reply if you seen that then we'll get things sort out.

two possibilities:
1. the thermal heat release is not applied
2. the powersupply is fried.

Phi


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

redo the paste with some arctic silver
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

Ok Thx, I'll give the silver a try. 

What about the power cord I mentioned in my last post? Should I get one that matches the psu or does that make no difference?

BRGDS
MOE M.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

power cords are pretty standard the thicker the cable the better the quality


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## prudhoc1 (Jan 24, 2008)

He said the PSU in the HP is a 15a(12v i'm guessing) and only 250-watts. That is extremely low while trying to run a dual core system etc. Have you considered upgrading your PSU?


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

it needs to be up here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004&Tpk=corsair+550w


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

Perhaps I explained the psu incorrectly. I got the reading the inside of the 15a/250v from the actual outlet/3prong thing. The psu model isa bestec model atx-300-122, which like everthing else on the pc came stock.
Here's what the sticker on it reads:

OUTPUT +12v---/19a -12v---0.8a
300W MAX +5v---/30a +5vsb---/2a
+ 3.3v---/28a

+5v & 3.3v 180W MAX. +5v & +12v 288W MAX

I got it running again yesterday, when I took out everything excluding the mb, and it started up properly on the first try. After I ran the pc doctor tests, I tried playing W.O.W. (which I believe may have caused all the problems in the first place, even though canIrun it says I more than meet all the min. req.). I was getting crappy fps, so I decided to do the system restore which sets everything back to factory stock settings but saves all my apps & files. That worked fine until I got to the part where it loads the desktop. I have about 30 things on the desktop and it was running very, very slowly to which point it loaded about half of the desktop then froze up completely. After that I tried the the destructive recovery option which deletes evrything I've done & sets everything back to factory settings. All of the setup was going much faster than normal so I was enthused, but it still got hung up at after the welcome screen. Now I think there might be something wrong with the HD..ugh.

I'm starting to think this may all be due to overheating, since even though I started it up cold from overnight, after running the sys rec for a few minutes the HD & intergrated video card get very hot (seems abnormally hot). That may explain why the cpu fan goes into overdrive the minute I plug it in. Could it be sensing or did sense that something is to hot and refused to go into bios til it's cool..?!? I don't know since I'm very new to all this & most of my info/exp isn't really first hand & from researching on the web.

I will get the artic silver this weekend since it may help and could be a cheap fix in the meantime. I bought the aforementioned pc for about $600 2 years ago, so I don't think it would be wise to spend money on a new psu or something similarly expensive. I'd like to attempt to build my own pc, but still don't feel competent at this point. I do think I will be able to salvage some things from this pc such as the ram, dvd drive, the outer fan, and maybe even the HD, to save some coin. I would feel a bit uncomfortable since I dont thin I've clearly diagnosed the problem yet.

Again thx for the replies, any thoughs or comments will be welcome & helpful :smile:

BRGDS
MOE M.

I forgot to mention something which would contradict my overheating theory. Last time I had it running, I dled speedfan to check all the temps.
From what I've been reading all the temps seemed fine and had checkmarks (good) on the speedfan program. I don't remember all the temps exacly but the highest one was core temp which fluctuated from 38-42 C., which I believe is normal.

So I've just taken the entire computer apart and even removed the mobo for a thorough cleaning. I did break one wire that connects to the headphone jack in front, otherwise everything else looks fine.

One thing I noticed immediately when i removed all the casing and the mobo is that there's scorch marks in 2 places on the case. First one is directly under where the processor sits, second is where the hd is encased...this cant be a good thing :4-dontkno.

Another thing that has me confused is that I have another heatsink...or is this the only heatsink? I originally thought the heatsink was the big metal piece with fins, (which also has the fan screwed onto it, which I;ve been calling the cpu fan) that sits atop the processor. After taking the mobo off I'm able to read it now and right next to the processor is another heatsink, though much smaller (cleary labeled heatsink1 on the mobo). So when the fan is running its cleary blowing in 2 directions, one way into the psu, and the other directly onto this smaller heatsink. I unpinned the small heatsink and underneath it looks like there was some glue or pad which looks burned also.

The smaller heatsink sits atop what I think is a square chip?,green outline, black inner, with a metal square in the center. Should I clean or scrape off underneath this heatsink & on and around the metal square, as it looks like its caked on there?

Also, if anyone can tell me what this is exactly that this mini-heatsink is sitting on that would be great. I'm finding it very difficult to find pics and diagrams that lI can use for reference, though now that I have the mobo out its much easier to identify things.

BRGDS
MOE M.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

That smaller heatsink close to the cpu is the Northbridge heatsink. And the stuff underneath would be the remnants of the factory thermal pad. You need to clean both the heatsink base and the metal square on the northbridge. Use high purity alcohol, at least 90% or ArcticSilver also makes a product called ArctiClean which works quite well. Then thermal paste such as Arctic Silver 5 or MX-2 needs to be applied before remounting the heatsink. A very thin layer. Aside from the video card and the cpu, the northbridge runs the next hottest. 
Here's Arctic silver's instructions again. http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

underpowered


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

pvo01
don't put your problems on this thread if you need help start your own thread


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

Ok, looks like I'm back in my pc:grin:.

I was able to get into bios by removing the battery for a couple minutes. I trie dthis a couple times just to see if it would work again and wasn't a fluke, it did! In the bios I disabled autmoatic power on after power loss (or something like that). It seems it was set to enable, while the default setting is auto. I decided to just try and disbale it since that sounds like that was my problem.

So now it's good news/bad news.

Good news: I can now turn off the computer and it will still boot up without unplugging it, though it still takes a hard reset (power button held for 5 sec) to turn off. When I turn it off via the hard reset and immediately try to power on it won't boot, I still get the black screen (fan runs normally though). But...if I turn it off via hard reset and wait about 10-30secs it always boots up fine, have done it at least 10 times, which brings me to my bad news...

Bad news: Upon boot up eveythings runs normally, I can access bios, setup, & pc recovery. However, when xp is loading the system always freezes. It always freezes at or after the welcome screen, usually after with the desktop half loaded or something like that. I've tried a destructive recovery (which loads everything to org factory setting), after which I have to run the setup like when I first bought this pc. I must say at this point everything runs fast and smoothly until the welcome screen or desktop at which point the freeze occurs.

I am currently in safe mode with networking (all safe modes work fine?!?!), but don't really know what to do form here to get xp running normally.

Should I start a new thread in the appropriate forum or can I get some help here?

THX
MOE M.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

in msconfig/startup
untick all non ms items boxes and see if it boots normally
if it does retick one of the boxes and try the normal reboot until you find the item that's the problem
if you need it on boot reinstall it
if not leave it unticked


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## pvo01 (Oct 10, 2008)

try check ur c:\ by tool=> check now, and run chkdsk /f.


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

I turned off startup services (non ms) in safe mode, but still get frozen at the welcome screen in normal mode. 

I can only run chkdsk in the recovery console. Chkdsk /p says there is one or more errors on the drive, then I chkdsk /r and theyre gone/fixed.

I have 3 backup/recovery dvds but I still get the same problem after using them. Though after I use them I get my desktop but it takes a long time and is really slow. These dvds again restore everything to org factory settings so I figure it would work perfectly, even though it doesn't it's the farthest iI can get into normal mode. I get the whole destop loaded can even open task manager, norton strts to run,seems like tis loading evrything oly slower, then it freezes....


BRGDS
MOE M.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

run
sfc /scannow


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

I get the "windows file protection could not initiate a scan of protected system files. The specific error code is 0x000006ba (the rpc server is unavailable)" error, when I run sfc /scannow.


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## pvo01 (Oct 10, 2008)

moeman said:


> I turned off startup services (non ms) in safe mode, but still get frozen at the welcome screen in normal mode.
> 
> I can only run chkdsk in the recovery console. Chkdsk /p says there is one or more errors on the drive, then I chkdsk /r and theyre gone/fixed.
> 
> ...


in the worse case. i would wipe the disk completely. since you already have the backup dvds in advance so you can use it to restore. Once the disk is wiped, chances are all the slowliness and frozen scenarios will fix.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

enable the rpc service in
admin tools/local services


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## moeman (Sep 20, 2008)

dai said:


> enable the rpc service in
> admin tools/local services


Ok, so I did anonther system recovery accidently (no way to stop it once it started), this was just the regular recovery that is supposed to save your files or whatever.

Anyways, after the windows setup screen, theres the hp setup screen.
Regardless of whether I complete this screen or skip it, this is where the freeze always occurs (sometimes at welcome, sometimes at half/fully loaded desktop). 

So right now I did not complete the hp setup or exit it and decided to try and use the task manager as it and dos command prompt are the only thngs I can pull up at this point.

I ran sfc /scannow, it ran for about 30 min or so and right before it completed I got the following error: 
Files that are required to run windows properly must be copied to the dll cache. Insert you windows xp prof cd 2 now...

Well I dont have such a disk. I tried inserting all of the disks I made on this computer, but they didn't work. Shouldnt the recovery restore everything to how it was out-of the-box?? 

I think I can see the errors or missing dlls in the eventvwr, but none of them look familiar...

Anyideas on what to do from here, I'm dont want to restart yet or close the hp setup screen for fear of freezing again! Should I leave the pc running in this state until I find a solution?

BRGDS
MOE M.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

you would expect it to
see if a friend will lend you a copy of the disk


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## highzide (Aug 30, 2009)

moeman said:


> Ok, looks like I'm back in my pc:grin:.
> 
> 
> So now it's good news/bad news.
> ...


Hi, I'm a noob here. Well IMHO, you haven't totally solved your original issue here. Technically -when you say looks like you're back again, yes you were able to remedy the issue but practically speaking, you weren't able to solve it and back it running normally (w/o the "hard reset to turn off thingy" and freezes on welcome screen OS).

Have you tried applying a thermal compound on your procie? 

Thanks!


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