Computer Troubles

Joseph,

Can you provide a little more detail on exactly what you are seeing on the screen when you power up? Is there an error message of any type?

A few more questions; Do you know how to access the BIOS on the computer? Do you know how to go into SAFE mode on Windows XP? Your knowledge of computers is going to dictate how we try to help you with the problem. Please try to give a little more detail on the exact problem you are having.

Tom D.

There is no error message. i do know how to get into my bios, I'm not sure on entering the safe mode. i am not sure if you received all of my problem so ill write it again. at start up it reads memory and and so on , then when it goes into the window XP screen it runs thru to, a bar on the sceen is working then it halts and then it starts up but moves slowly at that time i get a code on my mother board that was changing numbers, it changes to FF which i don,t know if it's a failure or what. the mother board is an Abit 7II, could it be that I corrupted my my windows XP

In order to get into the BIOS, you need to press the DEL (Delete) key during the POST time (Power On Self-Test). When you first power up the computer, you should see a message: "PRESS DEL TO ENTER SETUP".

Click on the link Merph gave, and download the right users guide for your motherboard (you will need to look on the motherboard to see which model you have). Once you have the manual, find the section "BIOS SETUP". One of the first things I would check when you get into the BIOS is the "PC HEALTH STATUS". This screen will show you information about the power supplies, the fans, etc. A problem with one of these things could be preventing your computer from booting. If everything looks good here, I would try to boot Windows into safe mode. You do this by pressing the F8 key before the computer tries to start up XP. Safe mode allows the computer to run Windows in a minimal way, without a lot of the add-ons that would run on a normal start-up. If the computer boots into safe mode, you know that the problem is most likely a problem with Windows, and your hardware is probably OK. There are also several other options you should have when you press F8 at the start, including one called "Last Known Good Configuration". This would be another good one to try. This will roll back any changes that might have made Windows "unbootable".

Please try a few of things suggestions out and get back to us. If you get through these and still aren't getting any clues, we'll move on to more serious troubleshooting, like booting the computer with a CD, to try some other diagnostics.

Tom D.

Hi Tom :

I tried what you said. by the way its a ABIT th711 mother board. I checked the heath status and it seemed ok. I then tried booting up in safe mode and the same thing happened by the way i checked the post codes as they call them and it goes up thru many numbers the last number i see is 96 before it goes into FF and stays there. which is the last code before FF. FF reads boot atempt (int 19h) I dont know if that is normal. So now I don't know what to do again. Joe Urbas

I wish I could send you a copy of the Post codes. But I can't it's on page 2-11 of the user manule

Joseph,

I think the next thing I would try would be to boot a known good source. There's a number of free CD images out on the internet, that allow you to make a bootable CD. A quick search found this one:

Ultimate Boot CD

Hopefully you have a way to download and burn a CD. Once you have the CD made, you need to check your BIOS for the Boot sequence. This is what tells the computer which sources to try to boot from. You want to put the CD drive as the first boot source, and then put the boot CD in, and restart the computer. It would probably be good to be able to test the boot CD you made in another system first, so you can be sure you have a good boot source.

The idea here is to see if the problem you are having is related to the hard-drive or the Windows OS. If you are able to boot to this CD, it has a lot of utilities to get further along with troubleshooting your problem. I'll mention that it's also possible to make a USB stick bootable, but only recent computers the option to boot from USB, if it's a choice in your BIOS, that's another way you can go.

If you can boot to the CD (or USB stick), you have eliminated a lot more hardware from the list of possible problems, and you will be able to run some diagnostics to help find the root cause.

Tom D.

I went to (ultimate boot cd) and i didn't understand it at all. It sent me into signing up for something so I got out. do you know a good source to down load from. i have capabilities to burn a cd I also have a card for usb 2 but im not sure how to make it bootable. Id rather use a cd or dvd the computer in question boots up on c drive so you'll have to tell me what to do. Joe

Tom: I went to the web site and it worked beautifully. I did make a copy of the download on a disk. In the mean time I visited my son this weekend (he has a masters degree in computer technology) and I took the computer along. I thought you might be interested seeing you spent so much time on my problem. He got the computer going, First he disconnected everything and tried to boot up in safe mode and it still did the same thing after tiring a couple other thing he went and put an old CRT monitor on it and (woo-la) it worked. He the connected everything and it still worked. We plugged in a flat screen again and it didn't work he sent me home with the old monitor so I can work with it, and said he would look for another video card he suspects my video card to be flaky. Funny part is when I got it home it now works with my 17" flatscreen monitor.? Well thank you, for all the time you spent with me and my Problem. I really appreciate the time you spent with me. Joe urbas

PS; Reason I didn't go to him right away is, we don't talk much to each other.

Joseph,

Thanks for "coming back" to complete the story. I have seen issues where a monitor was incapable of displaying what the video card was sending it (usually, resolution set higher than a monitor is capable of), but the fact that you had an error code threw me off that path. You don't usually see any type of error with this issue, just a blank screen, or , if your lucky, an "signal out of range" message on the screen. Anyway, I'm glad your going again. Hold onto the boot disk you made, it may come in handy some day.

Tom D.