Hi guys - any help or advice would be realllly grateful!
So - first of all, my computer is REALLY old..but it's still so fast and works really well in W10. Just before upgrading from W7 to W10 I wanted to add a SSD to improve the speed of the comp - all went in absolutely fine!
Guess I should let you know the specs of the PC first - see the link. A REALLY old HP Pavilion but as I said before, it's been so reliable and I only browse/use Office on it and use it as a media centre so don't need anything amazng.
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c01588216
After a while the graphics card failed (I think anyway!) - had some weird BSOD and no display after that - new card put in (cheap again Gforce 210) and all was absolutely fine.
Then the SSD failed (a Sandisk) and was replaced under warranty - all reinstalled and fine and dandy...but then again it failed and they replaced it for a slightly upgraded 240GB SSD - which appears to be fine at the moment.
Then again, the dodgy BSOD and I had no display - again, replaced under warranty and all fine again - until it happened again pretty quickly which made me think "Really, is it the graphics card again!?! It doesn't have a fan and is really cheap but I doubt anythung wrong with it!". So I tried all the usual trinks of pulling all the RAM out (actually and replacing the graphics card again just to check), taking the card complelted out and using the onboard - again nothing! Not sure of the order but suddenly with the onboard it worked - and for a while was ok but then randomly shut off again.
I kept thinking probably the motherboard was faulty so I bought 1 off ebay (pretty much the same but had less moduled in etc) - but was a HP board. Again, nothing!! Tearing my hair out I thought I'd look at the CPU. I took the heatskink off and had to force it slightly...and off came the CPU with the heatsink. Some of the pins looked bent and while really carefully moving them - 1 or 2 came off. I stuck it back in anyway and after a lot of fiddling to my amazement it booted up! Again after a while the display went.
With that in mind I thought probably the old motherboard was in fact ok - along with the graphics card that went back in. I wanted to eliminate as much as possible so I bought the exact same CPU off ebay - after a lot of fiddling (it woudln't go in v easily) inserted it back into the now original motherboard - again, nothing for ages! UNTIL I took all the RAM out again for the 50th time - and then it reliably booted up EACH time...I reckon 1 stick of RAM was potentially dodgy as each time that same stick of RAM was put in I wouldn't get any display. SO....all back in and each time woudl boot into Windows fine.
Then ANOTHER problem which was never a problem before...the computer would randomly power off completely with not many interesting things in the logs. I could power it straight back on - sometimes it would stay on for 20/30mins..sometimes a few minutes. I had bought some dodgy Z5 paste off Amazon as I could get next day delivery....on HWMonitor the cores were showing up around 30degrees in idle. I managed to today get some MX-4 and that seems to have lowered the temp but still it is powering off.
I did check to make sure it wasn't my install of Windows - as I took the SSD out and booted off the original W7 that was on the old HDD that was still plugged in - again it would power off.
Sorry for the really rambling message (you'll be doing well if you got this far!!) but I've got to the point where I'm not sure what else I can do.
Any ideas? Many thanks if anyone does reply...!!
So - first of all, my computer is REALLY old..but it's still so fast and works really well in W10. Just before upgrading from W7 to W10 I wanted to add a SSD to improve the speed of the comp - all went in absolutely fine!
Guess I should let you know the specs of the PC first - see the link. A REALLY old HP Pavilion but as I said before, it's been so reliable and I only browse/use Office on it and use it as a media centre so don't need anything amazng.
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c01588216
After a while the graphics card failed (I think anyway!) - had some weird BSOD and no display after that - new card put in (cheap again Gforce 210) and all was absolutely fine.
Then the SSD failed (a Sandisk) and was replaced under warranty - all reinstalled and fine and dandy...but then again it failed and they replaced it for a slightly upgraded 240GB SSD - which appears to be fine at the moment.
Then again, the dodgy BSOD and I had no display - again, replaced under warranty and all fine again - until it happened again pretty quickly which made me think "Really, is it the graphics card again!?! It doesn't have a fan and is really cheap but I doubt anythung wrong with it!". So I tried all the usual trinks of pulling all the RAM out (actually and replacing the graphics card again just to check), taking the card complelted out and using the onboard - again nothing! Not sure of the order but suddenly with the onboard it worked - and for a while was ok but then randomly shut off again.
I kept thinking probably the motherboard was faulty so I bought 1 off ebay (pretty much the same but had less moduled in etc) - but was a HP board. Again, nothing!! Tearing my hair out I thought I'd look at the CPU. I took the heatskink off and had to force it slightly...and off came the CPU with the heatsink. Some of the pins looked bent and while really carefully moving them - 1 or 2 came off. I stuck it back in anyway and after a lot of fiddling to my amazement it booted up! Again after a while the display went.
With that in mind I thought probably the old motherboard was in fact ok - along with the graphics card that went back in. I wanted to eliminate as much as possible so I bought the exact same CPU off ebay - after a lot of fiddling (it woudln't go in v easily) inserted it back into the now original motherboard - again, nothing for ages! UNTIL I took all the RAM out again for the 50th time - and then it reliably booted up EACH time...I reckon 1 stick of RAM was potentially dodgy as each time that same stick of RAM was put in I wouldn't get any display. SO....all back in and each time woudl boot into Windows fine.
Then ANOTHER problem which was never a problem before...the computer would randomly power off completely with not many interesting things in the logs. I could power it straight back on - sometimes it would stay on for 20/30mins..sometimes a few minutes. I had bought some dodgy Z5 paste off Amazon as I could get next day delivery....on HWMonitor the cores were showing up around 30degrees in idle. I managed to today get some MX-4 and that seems to have lowered the temp but still it is powering off.
I did check to make sure it wasn't my install of Windows - as I took the SSD out and booted off the original W7 that was on the old HDD that was still plugged in - again it would power off.
Sorry for the really rambling message (you'll be doing well if you got this far!!) but I've got to the point where I'm not sure what else I can do.
Any ideas? Many thanks if anyone does reply...!!
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