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PC shows black screen when trying start

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Hetti

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Posted January 30, 2013 at 7:08PM

My brother was watching a video clip on his 6/7 year old PC (running Win XP, the clip started buffering (I think that's the correct term) then everything went of, he tried to start the PC up again and got a series of rapid beeps about 8/10 then the black screen.

Its not the monitor ,as he connected that to a different PC and that was OK. Any suggestions appreciated as the PC he has setup now takes about a week to change pages,really painfully slow as it was a cheapie with low spec and it is also old too.

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dkdanielkli

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Posted January 30, 2013 at 8:35PM

Hey, I'm not sure about PC's but both of my old laptop "died" after approximately 3.5-4 years. I managed to reinstall windows a few times on them when this problem occurred but got unlucky after a few times.

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Hetti

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Posted January 30, 2013 at 8:39PM

Thanks dkdanielkli

Kinda thought it might be the end of the road for it with it being so old, don't know if he will try to reinstall windows, but I will let him know about your suggestion so thanks again.

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Jock1e

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Posted January 30, 2013 at 9:40PM

Repeated Long Beeps: Memory Error.

But I suppose it could be anything.

6/7 years old has he cleaned the inside plus the air vents recently.

Make sure the fans are all cleaned and running.Remove the memory and reinstall it making sure it is seated properly.

Just something to try till someone can give you further information.

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Hetti

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Posted March 6, 2013 at 5:43PM

Have not disposed of the PC yet, was wondering if it would be possible to try to run a newer version of windows on it, if I did try to reinstall operating system

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted March 6, 2013 at 5:52PM

I'm running Xp on an 8yr old machine (P4 1.75MB Ram ) very sucessfully so once sorted yor 6 yr old should be fine.

what have you looked at so far? beeps and symptoms sound like memory problems

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daxian

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Posted March 6, 2013 at 5:56PM

hi ... i would suspect the graphics card might need reseating ,if it has an external card . as for a newer o/s, if its that old ,the specs might not be upto requirement for win 7 ,but possibly vista would run.

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chub_tor

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Posted March 6, 2013 at 6:15PM

Daxian is right, 8 beeps is very often a graphics card problem. If it is a desktop take off the side panel and see if you have a separate graphics card and if you do then do as daxian suggest and take it out, give the contacts on the card a good wipe over and push it back in again. If the graphics is part of the motherboard you may be snookered but you may also have a slot available for an expansion graphics card and you could put one in there.

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woodchip

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Posted March 6, 2013 at 6:59PM

Memory, but could be a Graphics card Problem, Try reseating the Graphics card, or if its onboard graphics try connecting to that

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Hetti

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 3:37PM

I did not post back here as this is my brothers PC he was going to dispose of it, so I haven't done anything at all, but he informed me he had not got rid of it so I wondered if it was worth trying to reinstall windows as this should be within my capabilites

I don't know what the graphics card even looks like but I do know where memory is and what it looks like.

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Chronos the 2nd

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 3:41PM

It would be useful to know exactly what 'beeps' the PC is emitting, might help in pinpointing the problem.

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