Hardware Computer dead?

[moozxy]

My mum's computer won't turn on anymore.
She said during the day that it kept switching off by itself. This sounded like what happened to mine, dust had clogged the fan up, so when I looked it was caked in dust.. So my guess is it overheated and something broke.. lol
Anyway if this happens does this mean the computer is unfixable without getting new hardware?

 

[Richy Freeway]

Check the motherboard for swollen capacitors.

http://www.5starsupport.com/images/def-cap.jpg

http://www.drx9000repair.netfirms.com/BadCapsX4.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/54/152742052_d543502402_b.jpg

like them. If you find any like that, you need a new motherboard.

 

[moozxy]

Ah ok I'll open it up later today.

 

[moozxy]

I just opened it up, and yes it looks like the capacitors are swollen..
The computer is quite old but my mum just used it for going online checking emails etc. do you think it's worth trying to fix?
And how much do motherboards cost, and could I (no experience) install it?

 

[Richy Freeway]

Check the motherboard for a model number and report back. If you know what CPU it has let me know that as well.

 

[moozxy]

I'll assume it's the names printed on it and that is ASRock and then it has several numbers and letters so I'm not sure which one is the model number.. I'll post them all; K7S41, ATA133, AGP 8X.
I don't know about the CPU sorry.
Thanks for taking time to help me out too, it's much appreciated.

 

[powertex]

sounds like the problem may be caused by one or two things, power supply or motherboard. if there are no swollen capacitor, then your motherboard is fine. usually though even if the capacitor goes bad it would still power up for a second and gives you and error. i'm leaning towards the power supply.

 

[legendofphil]

That board is an ASRock K7S41 and supports a Socket A processor (AMD Athlon XP/Duron).

EDIT: Looking at the manual you would probably need a new PSU as well if you needed to replace the motherboard, I doubt that has an ATX 2.0+ power supply in it that would be required for a newer board.

 

[Richy Freeway]

It's Socket A so pretty out of date. There's one up on ebay, only a month old that might be worth taking a punt on.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=170224893254

That would basically drop in and replace what you've got. There's a chance your PSU could be causing problems as well, but I'd change the board first n see what happens.

 

[moozxy]

Ah ok.. Well my mum decided she could live without hers and would go on either mine or my sisters when she needed to check her emails.
Is there anything I could pull out of there that's of any use?

 

[Richy Freeway]

Depends on what your PC is. The RAM might be usable in your PC, the hard drive definitely will be. But if it's an old slow small hard drive then it's probably not worth using it.