HP TouchSmart 300-1120 not booting up and with noisy fan

[nedzads]

Hi,

Kids were using the PC and saving high amount of data (about 30 GB) on Desktop??? SUspecting this could have trigerred overheating that caused the major failure. Some dust was found on the heat sink but nothing was completely clogged.

When the power button is pressed no boot process is initialied and the fan is as noisy as a helicopter. Tried reseting the power on the power button but to no avail and the same thing happened. HDD is fairly slow upon removal and during data recovery attempt, which was successful after all. Any suggestions please?

Thank you.

[Dunidar]

Hello @nedzads,

Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience! To help you get the most out of the HP Forums I would like to direct your attention to the HP Forums Guide First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More.

I understand that your computer will not start (except for the fan) and you suspect it is the result of overheating. The issue you are describing appears to be a physical issue and I think it would be best if you contact HP Technical Support for repair options.

I would like to thank you for posting on the HP Forums. Have a great day!

[nedzads]

Hi,

Thank you for the advice. That option has been considered, but considering my workstation is out of warranty and my skills in hardware repair, I would like to bring this correspondence to a higher technical level. When I asked about suggestions, I meant on any piece of advice in terms on  how to acquire info about spare parts and eventually to get any insight about similar cases related to this particular workstation. I am sorry if I was not understoood properly and if my original question was not addressed properly as well.  I thank you for all your patience and understanding.

Best regards

[Dunidar]

Hello again @nedzads,

If I understand your reply you are confident in your technical expertise that you would like steps to resolve the overheating on your computer yourself as it is out of warranty. I can certainly assist you with this. First we need to understand 2 important things. Which fan is making the noise and where the overheating is coming from. At the same time we will clean out any dust that may have accumlated within your computer that may possibly be causing the overheating.

***IMPORTANT!!!: Ensure you have a can of compressed air handy.

The first thing you are going to need to do is remove the back panel from the computer. I am providing you with an HP Support document: Removing the Back Panels in HP TouchSmart 300-1000 Series Desktop PCs. This will open up the computer and allow you to access the parts that need to be cleaned of dust.

Now we want to ensure that as much dust is removed using only compressed air from the computer's components as possible, but we also need to focus on 4 main areas. I am providing you with an image of the areas that you need to ensure are as clean as possible:

1. Processor Blower Fan Assembly - Part Number (533386-001)

2. Power Supply Blower Fan Assembly - Part Number (533387-001)

3. CPU Thermal Kit

Now after you have ensured that ALL the components have been thoroughly cleaned using the compressed air the overheating issue should be resolved. If however it has not been resolved we have two choices we can either replace the noisy fan (if after the cleaning it is still noisy that is) or we can replace the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU.

If the fan is still noisy I suggest we start there. A simply online search using the part number I provided will find you various vendors that will sell the fan that is making the noise. The process is pretty straight forward on how to replace it, but if you are unsure of how please feel free to re-post and I will assemble a guide to assist you.

If the fan is not making any noise and the computer is still overheating (even if you replaced the noisy fan) we will have to replace the thermal paste on the CPU and the thermal pad on the GPU. Again this process is straight forward and my only tip would be do not buy the cheapest thermal paste you find there is a big difference in the quality of thermal pastes out there and I would not want to see you have to do this again because of a few dollars. If you require assistance with the process of replacing the thermal grease as with the fan replacements re-post and I will assemble a guide to assist you.

I believe that the above steps will alieviate any overheating you are experiencing and should get your computer up and running as it should. Thank you for bringing this issue to the HP Forums. Have a wonderful day!

[nedzads]

Hi,

Your efforts in providing a step by step guide are awesome and wonderful and I hope many who do not know how to will use it wisely in their own cases. I am also emensly grateful to your great efforts in tutoring indeed. However, I have done almost all the steps on my own  already and it is the  Power Supply Fan that makes the  highest noise primarily, and the CPU fan follows it but not as intense and loud. As for the paste, I appreciate and support your advice very highly but I have repaired dozzens of branded and non branded PCs using the quality paste only.

I have managed to take out the hard disk drive and have extracted the most valuable data, and the general condition of HDD is bad, even when used externally. The system does not boot at all and HDD, when inside the workstation, will not respond at all. Unfortunatley I have not been there when the damage took place, but my fear is that the MB, CPU and power supply have taken irreaparble damage. I do not have the parameters to guide me in further investigation to ascertain which circuits are gone completely, and it would be the waste of time however. My only concern is the provision of replacement MB and CPU, along with appropriate power supply.  Fan kits will in my free opinion be required as well. I can not tell anything about the monitor yet.

For a good wander, RAM modules are good and out of my negative expectations, but still require further testing on high load over a few hours.  

I really iked this machine, perhaps  the most out of all I ever had.

One more thhing>  is there any replacement alternative to Jessee motherboard in this workstation or the Jessee itself is the only one to be used here?

Again, your help, tutoring and great overall efforts are sincerely appreciated. God bless.

Nedzad

[Dunidar · Accepted solution]

Hello again @nedzads,

Thank you for the comments about my post they are appreciated. Given what you have stated and asked about your computer I will say this. First with a lot of HP computers there are different motherboards that can be used in them. Unfortunately, yours is not one of those. As far as I can see the only motherboard recommended for your computer is the Jesse motherboard. I can however give you a bit of advise. Based on what you have stated is no longer functional and what you need to replace I would advise you to contact HP Technical Support before committing yourself to a project like this. HP Technical Support does have options that may be less costly and provide you with a computer that is already upgraded. There is nothing to say you have to commit to anything, but it would be worth checking out I would think.

HP Technical Support - 800-474-6836. If you live outside the US/Canada Region, please click the link below to get the support number for your region. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-phone-assist.html.

Thank you again for your post on the HP Forums. Have a wonderful day!

[nedzads]

Hi,

If I may say, you are really customer oriented professional. Thank you very much for your great efforts.

Best regards

Nedzad

[outworlder63]

     I was having the exact same problem, but after some troubleshooting I found that my problem was intermittent.  Sometimes the computer would start up normally, but I found that upon restart after a shutdown the same problem had returned.  During the times the computer was running normally, I ran the HP diagnostics System Test and all tests passed.  The hard drive, RAM memory, CPU, CD drive and motherboard tests all passed.  All power supply outputs checked out good and yet once again after a power shutdown the problem returned.

After reading that someone else on this discussion board had the same problem but it was being caused by a lifted CPU, I decided to check out the CPU, CPU holder and heat sink.  My CPU was not lifted or stuck to the heat sink, but I removed it, inspected it, cleaned off the old thermal compound from the heat sink and metal cap of the CPU.  I replaced the thermal compound on the CPU metal cap and the heat sink and reinstalled the CPU and heat sink, then I turned the computer on and it and still had the same problem. 

I looked at the CPU again and found that there was a little slack in the CPU holder mount that I found was causing a misalignment between the CPU and the motherboard contacts thus taking the CPU out of the circuit.  I pushed the slack out of the CPU mount by pushing the mount up towards the top of the motherboard, then I placed the CPU back into the mount and locked it down.  After doing this I found that I could start up my computer normally, shut it down and start it up again with no problems.