Please help, Urgent Computer Problem!!! (1 Viewer)

[Brett Hancock]

My downstairs computer has a problem that I have never seen before and honestly have absolutely no idea how to fix. Whenever I try to access any drives or windows trys to load up the computer just stops working. The signal to the monitor goes off, CTRL, ALT, DELETE doesn't do anything and either does pressing any other keys. Because it will not access any drives I cannot reformat my c drive and reinstall windows. A few things that might be helpful

1.I am running both Windows 2000 and Windows 98. I have never had a problem doing this before.

2.I am networked to a computer upstairs(could this be useful in fixing the computer?)

Any suggestions please IM me at Xmrxbrettx. Thanks.

 

[Thom B]

Sounds like a power supply failure.

Are you getting any beep codes? That is, does the computer beep differently now when it boots than previously? Manufacturers will use this for diagnosing HW failures. You can check for specifics at the box or motherboard manufacturers website. Count the beeps and the length. eg long short short long

Another check is to crack the case and make sure your cards and ram are seated tightly, and that all of your drive connections are tight as well. Be sure that all cards are seated straight, and nothing is potentially twisting or warping the MoBo.

T

 

[Leila Dougan]

Does the monitor just shut off but the tower keeps running, or does the whole computer shut off? Can you get into Safe Mode in Win98 or VGA mode in Win2k? Do you see the Win98 splash screen or does the signal to the monitor shut off before then? If it does, can you see the BIOS screen?

 

[Brett Hancock]

The monitor stays on and the tower keeps running. I can get into safe mode in win98. I can now actually get into whatever Operating System I am using but once I try and do anything beyond that it shuts off.

 

[Max Leung]

Sounds like your video card is outputing a signal that is incompatible with the monitor. In safe mode, see if you can change the display resolution to 640x480, 60Hz and reboot and see if you get back a picture. If that doesn't work, force Windows to load the Standard VGA device driver to force the computer to use the old windows video driver. If that works, you can try reinstalling the normal video driver, and ensure the driver is not telling the card to output a signal that is beyond the monitor's capabilities.

 

[Drew Wimmer]

Brett-

first and foremost, back-up your data

if you're comfotable with messing around inside your computer, just take out this system's harddrive and add it to the other computer in your house, attach it to the cable the other system's harddrive is connected to and make sure the jumper on the back is set to the "slave" position, there should be a sticker on the top of the drive to tell you what that is

then when you boot the other system back up it should automatically see the other harddrive, copy your important stuff ot the working pc

easy stuff first:

reseat your cards and memory (as mentioned above)

if you pc is inside a cabinet (built-in cubbyhole for your pc in your desk, etc.) then take it out and try to load into windows

if you have any hardware monitoring software (perhaps a apckage came iwth your motherboard) that can tell you the voltages that the different rails for your PSU are running, if they're too far from the values they should be at(+12v, +5v, +3.3v, ~+1.5v-1.85v for vcore, -5v, and -12v)

if you don't have that, then when you reset your system go inot the BIOS settings menu and look for hardware monitoring and look at the temperatures/voltages there (cpu temperature should not be above the mid 50's celsius, if it is than that could be your problem)

i'm not quite sure what you skill level is, so tell me if any of this is going over your ehad and i'll try to explain it better