About a week ago my pc started acting up. When i would boot it up for the first time it wouls turn on for a second then turn off and do this until it eventually booted up. Now it will not boot up, it's just in the loop of turning on and off. Sometimes it will stay on for about 25 seconds.

I removed the ram and the pc stays powered on, it just beeps. Does ram go bad? I have two ram sticks and tried running it with one and it does the same thing, the on and off loop.

Any ideas?

Removing the ram gives the board an error, Thats why it just beeps & stays on.

Try unplugging just the hard drive, And see if it does the on/off thing still.

With the ram im and the hard drive unplugged it still does the on/off thing. Also tried removing the graphics card and it did the samething as well


Could it be my power supply? Its weird the pc stays on while the ram is removed.

This post was edited by Favre on Dec 27 2017 04:50pm

The PC doesn't need the RAM to just turn on. All it really needs is the motherboard and the power supply.

Do you know the make and model of your power supply?



/e Other things that might make the computer act like that...

Stuck power or reset button on the case.
Stuck key(s) on the keyboard


But generally I would think it is the motherboard or the power supply.


You can do a basic power supply test with a paperclip.

http://support.antec.com/support/solutions/articles/1000015319-is-my-power-supply-dead-the-paperclip-test



With the two pins shorted with a paperclip as explained in the link...the power supply should come on...the power supply fan should spin.




/ee It sounds like the computer is failing the POST test (Power ON Self test) that is performed between the motherboard and the power supply.

This post was edited by Ghot on Dec 27 2017 05:00pm

The make of my power supply is HP and model is PCA246

When the computer is running all the fans come on. I have 4, the back vent fan, power supply fan, graphics card fan, and a cooling fan on the mother board

Eventually the computer runs for like 25 seconds, i see an hp logo on the screen and the. It cuts off.

This post was edited by Favre on Dec 27 2017 05:22pm

Assuming you checked those other things...I'd guess it was power supply or motherboard.

The reason it starts and then cuts off is that it is failing the POST Test. If it fails that it will just keep trying to restart.


I guess this a prebuilt computer by HP. I would have it checked at a local computer shop that you trust.

How old is this computer?

The pc is now about 5-6 years old.

I googled pc post fail and went to this website:
https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000607.htm/URL]

I followed the steps and when i got to the RAM step i read this and thought i may have bad memory. I can get the pc to stay on without RAM. I have a 8gb stick and 4gb stick, would it be worth it to buy a new 4gb stick and see if my computer boots with just yhat?


If you continue to experience the same problem with all the above hardware removed, remove the RAM from the motherboard and turn on the computer. If the computer has a different beep code or if your computer was not beeping and is now beeping, turn off your computer and try the below suggestions. Make sure to turn off the computer each time you are adding and removing the memory and then turning the computer back on to see if the suggestion resolves the issue.

Re-insert the memory into the same slot.
If you have more than one stick of memory, remove all but one stick of memory and try rotating through each stick.
Try one stick of memory in each slot.
If you can get the computer to boot with one or more of the sticks of memory installed, it is likely you are dealing with some bad memory. Try to identify which stick of memory is bad and replace it.

This post was edited by Favre on Dec 27 2017 05:49pm

Yeah, that's all well and good. But you aren't having a booting problem, you are having a starting problem.

Because it';s a prebuilt HP, I would just take it to a small local comp shop and have them test the power supply...etc. It'll probably cost about $50.


/e Yeah, at 5-6 years old it could be a lot of things, but probably the power supply or the motherboard itself.



/e Hell it could be caked with dust, and that could be causing something to short out.





https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001263.htm

This post was edited by Ghot on Dec 27 2017 05:57pm

Same thing happened to my PC a few months ago. Rikuo helped me diagnose that it was likely the mobo or CPU. I concluded that it was the mobo since during the few times I got it booted for >minute my cpu was fine. I tried for weeks to get it to turn on to no luck.