Hi everyone, and Happy New Year. I've been having a problem with my HP Pavilion a450y that I bought off the HP website about 4 years ago, and I hope that you'll be able to give me a hand with this!

I performed a system restore a few days ago (restoring factory settings). Ever since, I've been able to turn on the computer, but unable to get to the POST screen.

The light underneath the power button that blinks with PC activity blinks once before staying solid.

Back before I had this problem, the fan used to whir pretty loudly for about one second at the POST screen before slowing down when Windows XP would start up. Now when I turn the computer on, the fan doesn't stop whirring loudly, and I can't even reach the POST screen.

I've tried unplugging the fan, using a different graphics card, and using different RAM, but none of these have solved the problem thus far.

Could it be a problem with the heat sink? Or might it be the processor?

Thanks a lot for your help!

after the restore ,did it boot for you and then stop booting ,or after the restore it just hasn't boot completely yet . if no to last / ,did you try and do the restore again ,as something obviously went wrong

I was able to boot the computer properly once or twice before the problem arose, so I didn't think anything was wrong at the time. But now I can't even get the computer to reach the POST screen.

check in the bios and make sure that it still sees you harddrive .
and or maybe do/try the restore again

Sorry, I don't think I've been clear enough. The problem is that I can't get to BIOS... matter of fact, I can't get anything to display on my monitor at all. I turn on the computer and nothing shows up on the monitor.

time for hands on computer repair shop i guess .i'm not much help unless i'm right in front of it !

OK, thanks very much for your help.

just a thought ,any chance you have a second monitor around to try it ,also what fan is spinning really fast the cpu one!?
.unplug power to everything like cdrom and floppy drive and harddrive ,just leave power to the motherboard ,remove all ram chips,and any pci cards like network and modems if any ,and try,you should hear beeps because of the no ram ,if no beeps then the motherboard/ or cpu is not working

perhaps consider the graphics card variable-- if its vga/onboard or a PCI etc. Not sure if this is of any relevance, but a variable to at least look into.

I'm having similiar problems with my HP m1000 computer -- but i can get to bios etc just cant get a re-install or boot.