Okay, just a little while ago, my computer froze up completely. I very, very rarely experience freezes, so I just frowned and rebooted.

Now, my computer will not start up.

I press the button, and several things turn on - the fans whir, the lights come on, all that... but I hear no start-up beep at all, and the screen claims to be receiving no signal. Because the cable on my screen is dodgy, I tried a different screen instead, just in case, but that screen also receives no signal.

I try again several times, but I'm getting nothing but fans and lights.

My computer is about five years old, so I'm wondering if it has finally died. I've had trouble with it before, but on occasion 1 it didn't even give me fans and lights (by a fluke, I found out that it was refusing to start up with my keyboard plugged in) and on occasion 2 I at least had access to BIOS and all that.

Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

Well there's several possibilities. You could have a dead motherboard, CPU (highly unlikely), graphics card, power supply or cable. There's no quick test to tell short of replacing parts and see what fixes it. With a computer that old, it's almost certainly not worth it.

Ah... oh well. I kinda figured it wouldn't be worth fixing, but add in trial-and-error diagnosis and you're really better off keeping that money aside for a new machine.

My parents have a "beast" I can use that's been replaced by my brother's computer, but it's devastatingly slow and the hard-drive is crammed with junk. I don't suppose you know how to restore Windows XP to a fresh install if you don't have/can't find the disc, do you? Thanks for your help!

Well, there's System Restore but I don't recommend it. It doesn't actually roll your computer back, just the actual operating system files. It can rather really screw with things installed and generally causes more of a mess than it fixes. Some computers do have options to nuke things back to day 1. Old HPs in particular I'm thinking of have recovery options built in. Otherwise there's things you can do to make the computer work better, but nothing quite as efficient as a clean install.

Thanks again!

I tried to do an ordinary cleanup, but however this computer was treated before hasn't done it any good at all. I couldn't convince it to do anything I wanted, and that was just when I was trying to fix it! My theory that "at least it'll have the Internet" was shot down very quickly.

In a probably very stupid move, I used a different Windows installation disc (the one that came with the other computer) and I used the serial key that's associated with this machine. I was able to successfully install and activate Windows, though I admit I was surprised that it worked (especially since this disc included SP3, which I'm sure the original would not have).

Do you know if this new installation would have an effect on downloading updates from Microsoft? It's the same OS, with the same serial and the same hardware, but I did use a different disc to install.

It's perfectly fine you used another CD. The important thing about Windows liscensing is the serial. You should only use that on one computer but the CD you use to install the OS isn't important. You should have no problem accesing microsoft update. Just make sure not to download drivers from there. Only install things in the first two options (never the third). You still need to make sure you install all the drivers though. You will need drivers for chipset, graphics, sound, and the internet at minimum. You may need more. Figuring out what drivers you need just became a lot more complicated now that you completed the reinstall.. Is it a mainstream computer like Dell, HP etc? If so, you should be able to go the their site and get the drivers you need by looking up the model number in the help section.

Thanks, that's good to know

The drivers are okay. I found the disc with all the motherboard's drivers when I was looking for the XP disc (this is the only computer we have that has everything Intel, so they were all on one disc), so they weren't any trouble - I might need to update a couple, but the things that make it work are on there now and it's all connected to everything.

I'll still probably be mostly using my brother's computer when I can, since it's capable of playing the newer games no problem, but at least I have a machine of my own to work with until I sort a new one out for myself. My brother's wasn't expensive, and it can run pretty much everything we've put on it at full settings with no lag, so I might try to get one similar.

Before deciding on a new computer, I would encourage you to read through our stickies here in this forum. I would pay special attention to the "Help Upgrading or Building/Buying a New Computer" sticky. I've written a pretty comprehensive guide that includes what to look for on each component and why, places to get the best deals and even some specific build suggestions at various price points.

Anyway, good luck