hmmmmm

[FTSE Beater]

Hi all

In need of help

My other computer crashed today. I left it for 5 minutes, came back and it wouldn't respond, no monitor no nothing. The only course of action was to turn it off by holding the power button for 5 seconds, and that turned it off - brilliant, until:

I turned it back on, the hard drive light stays on, and the hard drive drives for a matter of seconds and then dies.

I've tried unplugging the hard drive, and starting it - no good
I've tried, unplugging the CD-rom and hard-drive - no good, and I cant think for the life of me what is going on.
The monitor just stays in shut down / standby mode.

I'm running windows XP pro, and I've never had anything like this before. No new software has been installed or downloaded.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Dr Mike]

Does it poll the keyboard i.e do any of the little lights (numlock etc) flash - if not could be graphics card or AGP slot misfunction on motherboard - PCs will not bootup if video inoperative.

HTH

 

[Sharky]

Presumable you don't get the bios screen come up. In which case like Dr Mike said it could be the video card - I had a card blow up on me one time (though I was trying to overclock the cpu at the time!) - and I couldn't get the pc to load up at all. Otherwise could it be the motherboard itself? My brother had one go duff on him. ChartMan is your best bet though, perhaps give him a call tomorrow?

 

[FTSE Beater]

Hi Guys

Thanks for that. Sounds like the video card was up the shoot. I thought I could take it out, but then realized it's built into the motherboard

Thanks again

 

[esiotrot]

I've had similar probs in the past - running XP as well.

First time it was overheating - the CPU fan was a dud.
Second time the processor had gone - probably as a result of the earlier overheating. Processor P3 800.
If there is no POST beep then processor is possibly the problem.

 

[ChartMan]

Take the lid off, see if the CPU fan is spinning at full speed....
Take the memory out and see if it Beeps at you!......
Forget the video card/onboard.... they almost never fail. I've never seen a dud one. ....

 

[FTSE Beater]

Hi Chartman

Well I've done what you said, and not only I am I more confused....more worried as well

Anyway, taken the memory out, no beeps.
unplugged hard drives, cd-rom and floppy drives (every possible combination) and no change

The monitor only powers up when I unplug it from the computer

Does this mean what I think it means - new motherboard, and thus a new computer?

Either way, thanks for your help Chartman

 

[ChartMan]

Get it down here and I'll cast my expensive eye over it :cheesy:

 

[FTSE Beater]

Hi Chartman

hmmm I won't be able to pay you, but how about a share tip.

DON'T SHORT ENRON :cheesy:
Failing that, do you except lunch as a reasonable payment :?:

 

[ChartMan]

Just so long as it isn't LONG MONI..... No fees due for a look see.

 

[Mayfly]

Interesting discussion – I’ve been experiencing similar problems myself recently and I was wondering if you managed to solve it?

I’ve swapped around my memory and graphics adaptors and I’m now waiting for some new PSUs to be delivered in the hope that a new PSU will resolve the problem.

In the meantime, I’ve run a couple WinXP repairs and I was eventually reduced to re-installing WinXP. This appears to have resolved some aspects of the problems in the sense that my system appears to be a lot more stable than before, but I’m not convinced that I’m out of the woods with this one yet.

Some of the guys on the overclockers forum think that the "bug" (if that is what it is?) was introduced as a result of Windows Update 813489: April 2003, Cumulative Patch for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1.

The timing is about right: at least from where I’m sitting, but I’m not sure. I’d be grateful for any feedback or comments you may wish to make?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Trader333]

If you were running WindowsXP you could have restored your computer to an earlier time before the problems began. Interesting about the update you are talking of as I update quite regularly so I will check and see if I already have this upadate or not. At the moment I have no problems.

I hope you get sorted as I know it is very frustrating when things like this happen.

Good Luck


Paul

 

[Trader333]

I have just installed the latest WindowsXP update but before I did I set a new restore point on my PC so if anything goes wrong I can restore to just before the update. I will see how things progress.


Cheers


Paul

 

[FTSE Beater]

Hi Mayfly

What happened was the motherboard completely died on me. Fortunately Chartman managed to put me right

Apparently service pack 1 had a bug in it so be careful.

Trader333 makes a very good point. Always set restore points in XP - it saves a LOT of heartache. I even do it when I'm installing a new version of Sierrachart just it case the new version doesn't work correctly

 

[Mayfly]

Thanks for the advice guys.

The truth is that I’ve made a bit of a hash in trying to resolve this problem, when I broke the first rule of holes: meaning if you’re in one, stop digging! Anyway, I think that I’ve just about cracked it now.

For the future, I found a good summary of the windows stop errors and recovery commands, recovery console and other generally useful stuff on the overclockers forum. Here’s the link: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32319

You’ll have to register with the site to access the forum, but I think that you’ll find that it’ll be worthwhile.

Cheers and thanks again.

Steve

PS This is useful too http://www.digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_mar/tutorials/cw_boot_toot4.htm