So my computer will not start

Silver · Apr 20, 2005

You can't even get into the BIOS now?

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

You have, perhaps,

Bad memory
Bad power supply
Loose component

Check that everyting is installed correctly, then clear the BIOS memory and re-start. Look up the directions for this in the manual from your motherboard. (usually switching a jumper does it)

What system is it? What power supply? What is the general spec?

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

Here's diag steps used by just about every IT hardware guru. remove every piece of hardware from the MoBo, including HDDs, memory, but leave the processor. Next, plug each part back in one by one, starting w/ the ram. Listen for the beeps. A single beep is a good sign. Next is vid card. If screen shows BIOS, then you've just ruled out MoBo, PSU, processor, ram and vid card. If when you plug vid card in and get nothing, replace the vid card (w/ a known working one) and try booting. If still nothing, then remove ram (w/o ram, the system should beep 3 or 6 times - forgot which), and then processor as last item if removing ram still doesn't get you a BIOS screen. At this point, it's most likely your MoBo has fried/cooked.
If when you plug the vid card in and you do get BIOS, reset BIOS to defaults and then slowly plug each other card back in to the system until it chokes and pukes. The last thing should be HDDs.
Chances are, it's a vid card problem because of what you said about the initial flash, and you'd get the windows load screen, but not the splash screen for the login. This is when the driver takes over to display what you've spec'd in the windows settings. There maybe a chance you've tweaked the resolution and/or refresh rate out of the monitors range, but not likely.
Another good baseline to get to is reseting the CMOS. It'll bring everything back to a default setting. Typically, it's a jumper setting on the MoBo and you should read your MoBo manual for the exact steps to reset CMOS.

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

Pau11y, thanks for writing what I had not the patience for.

:thumb:

COmtbiker12 · Apr 20, 2005

You could transfer harddrives to another PC and load all your stuff over there, then just restart it. That is....if everything else doesn't work.

Sandwich · Apr 20, 2005

I agree, i think step 1 should be to reset your bios. There should be a small jumper (a cap on 2 of 3 prongs sticking out of the board), which you can remove or switch or something, and it will reset your bios back to normal.

I think i faced a very similar problem a couple of times, and each time I replaced my MB. I probably could have gotten away with resetting bios.

**Try lowering your clock speed too. I had some issues when I tried to set up my processor too fast.

It honestly sounds like hardware, and not winblows.

binary visions · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
If I can reset the BIOS will I still have everything on my hard drive that I had? I'll try that when I get home.
I dont think it's the video card becasue why would that shut down the whole computer. It really seemed like an OS problem with XP pro.

Actually, most computers won't start if the video card is bad. At least, in my experience - I'm not sure if that's something that's universal, but I've dealt with numerous bad video cards, and every time, the computer won't start up.

It's absolutely not a problem with XP. It's either a BIOS or a hardware issue. XP isn't even loaded that soon into the boot process.

Follow the steps that Pau11y outlined if you feel comfortable taking your computer apart. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, find someone local who does and have them follow the steps. Sounds like a bad video card to me.

Sandwich · Apr 20, 2005

No, your hard drive will be find if you reset bios. If you're fearful, you can remove the cable coming out, but all the reset on bios does is to take the small battery out of the circuit so the memory drops out.

You may also have a "reset defaults" that could help, but might not solve everything.

Wumpus · Apr 20, 2005

I had a video card that wouldn't work with the MB. Sounds pretty close to your problem.

firetoole · Apr 20, 2005

Did you try a baseball bat?
Sometimes it's the only thing that will work.

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
When I was able to get to the BIOS I thought I did a command that would reset it, but it didnt seem to. It said something about OS not starting up and to enable the command or something like that. After I did that my computer wouldnt even show anything.
What I think the main problem was is that it had an error loading the login screen, the file that it said could not be executed was something like ls(some letters I forget).exe
So on my mainboard there is a switch to reset BIOS?

My video card is a good one I should think. Wasnt too cheap anyway.

First thing, clearing the CMOS and resetting the BIOS within the BIOS are two completely different things. Now with that said, there are some boards you can clear CMOS from w/in the BIOS screens, but I think those tend to be server level boards. When you clear CMOS, your motherboard starts from scratch, locating and IDing HDDs, integrated NICs, resetting the system clock, ect. Resetting BIOS from w/in BIOS will just set it to defaults, but w/ all the old stuff still there.
Someone had mentioned slowing the clock speed of the processor down. On AMDs this might be do-able if you know how to short out the dots, but NOT Intels as their clocks and multipliers are locked. This is not a good diagnostic either as your processor is designed to function at set clock speeds and multipliers.
Lastly, the expense of a vid card has nothing to do w/ wheather or not if it's fried. I build my machines too and for diag reasons I tend to keep some old cards sitting around. The most likely prob is vid card in this case. So, try it w/ another vid card, a known working one.

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

firetoole said:
Did you try a baseball bat?
Sometimes it's the only thing that will work.

Throwing in a hand full of quarters can do wonders too

SkaredShtles · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
What does the video card have to do with the computer not being able to load something/the login screen? I was able to see stuff on the screen perfectly before the computer just stopped working. I'll see what I can do about clearing the BIOS. What is CMOS?

You should take your computer to someone who knows what they are doing. It will be easier for all in the long run.........

-S.S.-

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
What does the video card have to do with the computer not being able to load something/the login screen? I was able to see stuff on the screen perfectly before the computer just stopped working. I'll see what I can do about clearing the BIOS. What is CMOS?

Hardware detection of BIOS will find a piece of hardware w/o a signature and choke and puke. Processor ram and vid card are the first in the detection order which is why you remove everything except those items when diag a non-boothing system. BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System (or something like that) an instruction set which drives the hardware on your MoBo. Typically it's less than 2mb, which is around the size of the memory chip used to store the BIOS. CMOS is a chip that uses the BIOS instruction or is the location of the BIOS (for some reason I want say the BIOS is stored on an EPROM chip, a kind of flash memory chip). The CMOS is powered by the system, but also uses a small watch battery for when the system is down so you setting in BIOS is not deleted. That's why when you reset the CMOS, it completely wipes out the BIOS of every setting and it doesn't do that when you reset the BIOS from within BIOS.
Oh, I just remembered another way to reset CMOS - just unplug your pc and remove the watch battery for 1 min. Remember to reset your system clock in BIOS when you boot back up.

Edit: sorry, it's been a while since my PC 101 class/research.

binary visions · Apr 20, 2005

SkaredShtles said:
You should take your computer to someone who knows what they are doing. It will be easier for all in the long run.........

-S.S.-

You're in over your head right now - your questions clearly show that. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you should just have someone who knows their stuff actually sit down in front of it and look at it.

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

binary visions said:
You're in over your head right now - your questions clearly show that. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you should just have someone who knows their stuff actually sit down in front of it and look at it.

If you can, be there when the guy diags your machine so you can get the experience from him doing the work. And, chances are if you're hanging around, he might not tag you too hard for the time and might cut you a deal if you get the replacement thru his shop. :thumb:

stinkyboy · Apr 20, 2005

www.apple.com

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
Well, I cleared the CMOS and it started!!! Thanks for the help, nothing was lost!

The clock says 11:06 on Dec. 31, 2002 though, should say 3 something and todays date, I'll fix that.

Good to hear, but....

Something is wrong still. I can feel it.

Have someone who knows take a look at that box.

Sandwich · Apr 20, 2005

good job. you can reset the clock from the bios setup screen. unless you NEED to change anything else, you can probably leave it the way it is, happily. I have an athlon, so I set mine to shut off and warn at certain cpu temperatures (learned that one the hard way). I also have a boot sequence so that I can boot from a cd, even though it doesn't work. Aren't computers awesome :boooooooo:

stinkyboy · Apr 20, 2005

dwaugh said:
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.... that was a joke, right?

If it's funny to have machines that work clean and fast, are not swamped with viruses and daily security updates from Microsoft, then yes.

I've got a PC tech (for 10 years) buddy that's in the market for a new machine that has been using OSX on my home computer, and now he can't decide which Mac to buy...

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

stinkyboy said:
If it's funny to have machines that work clean and fast, are not swamped with viruses and daily security updates from Microsoft, then yes.

Meh.

Mac users are too lazy to do the minor things to keep a PC running right. It's really simple.

I'll do a tiny bit of maintenance for the cost/performance ratio. If Macs were priced realistically then I might even glance at them. Otherwise, I'll save my money for BBQ's and vacations.

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

stinkyboy said:
and now he can't decide which Mac to buy...

That's easy - sell your kid to the highest bidder, then spend accordingly.

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

$2,999.00

Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5
1.25GHz frontside bus/processor
512K L2 cache/processor
512MB DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA
8x SuperDrive
Three PCI-X Slots
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
128MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem

HAH HA HAHAH AHAHAHA HHHA AA!!!

stinkyboy · Apr 20, 2005

H8R said:
$2,999.00

Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5
1.25GHz frontside bus/processor
512K L2 cache/processor
512MB DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA
8x SuperDrive
Three PCI-X Slots
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
128MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem

HAH HA HAHAH AHAHAHA HHHA AA!!!

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

Are you kidding me!? For that price, I can build you a Quad (2 physical x 2 virtual - via hyperthreading) machine w/ 2 GB of ram and SCSI U320 disks that'll out run ANY Mac. If you really want to get out of hand, get the new 64bit stuff coming down the pike that'll run both 32 and 64 bit apps.

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

Pau11y said:
Are you kidding me!? For that price, I can build you a Quad (2 physical x 2 virtual - via hyperthreading) machine w/ 2 GB of ram and SCSI U320 disks that'll out run ANY Mac. If you really want to get out of hand, get the new 64bit stuff coming down the pike that'll run both 32 and 64 bit apps.

Your wasting your typing on this one.

But yeah, 3k on a home built PC. It would even have a drink holder.

:cool:

Pau11y · Apr 20, 2005

H8R said:
Your wasting your typing on this one.

But yeah, 3k on a home built PC. It would even have a drink holder.

Hell, for 3K it should have a set of lips pop out and blow you when you're surfin' porn!

narlus · Apr 20, 2005

that's the next, uh, release.

H8R · Apr 20, 2005

narlus said:
that's the next, uh, release.

Speaking of affordable super-computing, you get my PM?

narlus · Apr 20, 2005

i did, thanks. the stuff will be delivered tomorrow. BV's gonna swing by sun, and it should be good to go. yeah!

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