Probably just a dead hard drive, right?

August 3, 2007 3:51 PM

I was happily surfing when suddenly my computer died. The LED light on the front was still on, monitor still on, modem still connected, but the screen was black, and remained black after rebooting. Is this a hard drive failure or something else?

I thought it was a hard drive failure, until googling around showed that other people with hard drive failures get text on their screen when they reboot saying that the hard drive isn't recognized. I'm getting nothing on the screen, but when I pushed one of the monitor buttons it said that it was in power save mode and to use the mouse or keyboard to reactivate it. I always imagined that hard drives did like lightbulbs and died on startup, but this happened while I was listening to itunes and reading RSS feeds.

Of course I haven't backed up, but trying to recover anything is an issue for another day. If it's a dead hard drive, I think I can manage putting in a new one. If it's some other weird problem (randomly deciding to hibernate and not come out of it?) then I need to take it to a repair place.

I pulled the old computer out of the closet and hooked it up because the thought of being computerless even for an evening was making me hyperventilate....

posted by happyturtle to computers & internet (18 comments total)

What happens when the machine boots up? Does it beep? This doesn't sound like a hard drive issue, but rather something to do with the video card or motherboard.
posted by demiurge at 3:55 PM on August 3, 2007

Not much to go on. Sounds more like a video problem. I'd first double-check the video cable from the monitor to PC to make sure it didn't come loose through an accidental happy sweep of the foot. Assuming you have access to another computer, can you plug the monitor into it to ensure it still works fine. Haven't heard of a video card just dying, but it's possible.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 3:59 PM on August 3, 2007

Are you sure your monitor isn't the part that's dead? A blank screen is pretty uncommon for most failures. It doesn't take a lot of working parts in a computer to produce an error message to a display. I'd suspect the monitor or video card if the machine seems powered up and is making any kind of noises.
posted by advicepig at 3:59 PM on August 3, 2007

I have to first ask did you check all the obvious things like the video cable?


The initial pattern of beeps should tell you something if nothing else does. Also, what sounds does the hard drive make? Does it make the normal pattern of sounds?


And what's with not backing up? You can get an external USB drive for nothing these days, and some backup software to do it automatically for you for a little more.
posted by jockc at 4:00 PM on August 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

Even if your HD crashed, your should would still display something in BIOS boot.

Most likely a video card.
posted by jmd82 at 4:01 PM on August 3, 2007

No beep. No spinning, clicking, whirring. There's a flashing orange LED on the front.
posted by happyturtle at 4:01 PM on August 3, 2007

Sounds like motherboard to me. Did you try googling " and flashing front orange LED"?
posted by jockc at 4:03 PM on August 3, 2007

The monitor is fine (using it now). Whatever happened when it died happened without my assistance. I wasn't touching the case, even accidentally.
posted by happyturtle at 4:03 PM on August 3, 2007

oops I meant googling "<computer model name/number> and flashing front orange LED"?
posted by jockc at 4:04 PM on August 3, 2007

Hmmm... google seems to think it's the power supply. I hadn't realized that lights would still blink if the power supply was dead. I guess that's my something new learned for the day.

Thanks everyone... you saved me the time and money I'd have wasted replacing the hard drive. I don't think I'll attempt the power supply myself, so it's off to the computer hospital in the morning.
posted by happyturtle at 4:40 PM on August 3, 2007

I had a video card that burned out with results like this. The computer didn't beep to signal that there wasn't a video card because the motherboard had on-board video. I removed the dead card and switched the video cable to the motherboard's VGA out to fix the problem.
posted by stopgap at 4:40 PM on August 3, 2007

I would nth motherboard/video card problem. Sounds like you burned something out. I'd take it to a pro.
posted by Koko at 4:44 PM on August 3, 2007

I should have said power supply or motherboard. Either way, more than I can fix.
posted by happyturtle at 4:46 PM on August 3, 2007

power supply.
posted by rhizome at 4:58 PM on August 3, 2007

oh, and since you have two computers that can use the internet, the power supplies are likely interchangeable so you can test the fix easily by swapping the good PS in for the other one. You don't have to worry too much about using the wrong power supply since the motherboard plugs are different for each different kind of PS.
posted by rhizome at 5:00 PM on August 3, 2007

Borrow someone else's monitor and cable. If that doesn't work, borrow someone else's video card. If that doesn't work, you don't have a hard drive problem -- you have a motherboard or power supply problem.
posted by davejay at 5:30 PM on August 3, 2007

"You don't have to worry too much about using the wrong power supply since the motherboard plugs are different for each different kind of PS."

That's not entirely true. Some Dells use a non-standard power supply with a standard connector, guaranteed to fry non-Dell motherboards. Ignoring Dell, though, you're correct.
posted by CrayDrygu at 7:20 PM on August 3, 2007

It was the power supply. All fixed now. Thank you :)
posted by happyturtle at 10:06 AM on August 11, 2007