Computer Will Not Boot! Please Help! (Vanity)

[sonsofliberty2000]

I recently formatted and reinstalled Windows to my computer, a Pentium 4 2.3ghz system. Before a reboot I installed Nvidia drivers and installed my HP printer. During the install of my printer it had a conflict with my external hard drive. I turned off the external hard drive and finished the install and went to reboot. Right before the reboot an error message with a red X symbol came up and counted down to 30 seconds to turn off. Once it turned off I went to reboot and it would not boot. I hear no POST beeps, the fans turn on and s forth but nothing happens. Nothing comes up on my monitor either. I have tried both my PCI video card (the aforementioned Nvidia card) and my Intel video card that is built in. I really need this computer to work for school and cannot afford costly repair bills currently. All help will be greatly appreciated!

[Cobra64]

Would the sarcastic folks here please move on? A FReeper needs help.

[LiteKeeper]

Is it plugged in?

[Cobra64]

There are a lot of jerks on this thread. Probably the ones who only back up their porn.

[Las Vegas Ron]

I see many of the comments you are getting and you will running in circles all night.

There are very few reasons a PC will not boot to a drive that you can fix without replacing the mother board. And tearing all the wires apart will do nothing if you cannot POST.

Bad power supply, video card, first bank of RAM or CPU. If it is not one of these problems you will need another mother board. You can try and swap out the memory and video card first, CPU's are a bit harder to come by (this is assuming the power supply is good) You might want to invest in a POST card. They can save you a lot or time and hair pulling though a good one is about $300.00

If you decide you want one FReepmail me

[MASS-2 FAC]

S2K, see if you can get the computer to boot in safe mode. If you have a manual, it will tell you how. Normally, you are required to hold a function key (F2 or F8) during the boot process. If you can get it into safe mode, open the control panel, go to systems, hardware and device manager. Reverse the video driver you installed. then reverse the HP printer drivers you installed. I suspect you had an IRQ conflict when you installed the HP device. What's your interface into the printer? If it's a parallel port, you need to assign a new IRQ to the printer (call HP support). After you have reversed the graphics card and the printer, remove the graphics device by going to disable in the device properties. Reboot the computer into normal mode. When the computer is starting, it should tell you it found new hardware (the graphics card you disabled) It will then ask for a new driver location, Point the computer to the media device you use to store the new nVidia driver. If the computer finishes booting, restart it again. Don't mess with the HP Printer until you resolve the conflict. If the computer does not boot, you have a problem with the graphics driver. Go to the nVidia site, down load an older driver and try this one by repeating the steps above.

Your issue is compounded because you made multiple changes without first testing your last change. Now you can have a graphics problem, a printer problem or a storage problem. You also may have corrupted the binary file for one of the drivers you were loading. You need to methodically isolate the problem. Then you can deal with it. You stated that your fan controls were working. If your using power management, this is good. If the fans are being turned on/off by hardware, this means nothing. No being there, hard to tell. Can you remember the error message with the red X? You need to bring the processor alive in safe mode first, then you can fix what ever the issue is that's creating your problem. Since you said you just formatted and installed Windows (what version?), If all else fails, insert your Windows disk and turn it on. Reformat again and re-install Windows. This time, go slow and keep testing your install before you go to the next step. Somewhere along the line you'll attampt to install a driver and the OS will flash a error message. You just found your problrm. Good luck to you...

[Woodman]

What MAC's are immune to hardware failures? I guess they can bring world peace as well.

[Las Vegas Ron]

"Ahh the beauty of SCSI and Unix. Fdisk".

Amen. But hey, all systems have their quirks.

SCSI in the Windows environment was a nightmare in the beginning. Helped me sell a lot of diagnostics though.

[Dinsdale]

POST cards generally don't tell you anything you can't get by listening for POST PC speaker beep codes.

IMHO they are worthless. (been doing it for 20+ years)

A $300 card to diagnose a $85 mother board? For an end user?

BTW bad ram has, in my experience, generated POST beep codes.

Backing up. Beep codes: some number of rapid beeps a pause then some more.

Look at the MB manufacturers web sight for tables to interpret the POST codes.

[Woodman]

Best suggestions so far, but I would try to boot from a system disk before I started messing with any of the H/W. If you want to see if the H/W is ok and it may just be the disk, try downloading and burning Knoppix or Simply MEPIS to a bootable LINUX system disk. Also, if you get to a command prompt using the XP CD you can try running 'fixmbr' to repair the MBR if it is corrupt.

[Jeff Chandler]

The Flux Capacitor needs to be initialized.

Flux Capacitor?! GREAT SCOTT!!!!

[null and void]

Quite true. I had a mouse go bad once, and the back-up battery doesn't last forever.

Apple is working on the world peace part...

[Las Vegas Ron]

Thanks, The problem is though is that he can't POST, therefore he cant boot to any drive(s) to do anything.

[Redcloak]

No POST? That's bad juju. Try removing the unnecessary stuff, like the printer, the video card if the MB has its own video, etc.. A defective component could be causing the problem.

[Las Vegas Ron]

"I opened the chassis and found the wires connecting my processor fan to the board were sitting on top of the fan and keeping it from turning".

Good catch!

[Publius6961]

Thank God I have a Mac.

HEY!

I was gonna say that!

[Las Vegas Ron]

Depends on whose card you buy. You are right the're meant for techs who want to save time and not swap out parts.

BTW bad ram has, in my experience, generated POST beep codes.

But not always. We both know haw fickle RAM can be some times. If the base memory is bad, you won't get beep codes.

[Woodman]

The last PC I actually had any real problem with was a Compaq laptop that was a 386 DX25 and that one the color screen fried on. It was also the most expensive computer I ever owned. I threw out an IBM Aptiva MMX 233 after about 5 years just because I could afford to.

I really do like Apple design, I'm just not a big fan of using Apples. Personal preference, they both work and Windows works much better than most Apple advocates will admit. Most problems people have with their PC's are self inflicted by install some POS software, not Windows.

[Woodman]

I didn't assume he couldn't post, because he said he didn't hear any post beeps. Not all systems beep at start. It is a somewhat old habit to expect post error beeps at startup (I still do listen for them), but I would usually try booting a RAM disk before I rip things apart. This has saved me much grief in the past. FWIW, I think he most likely does have a H/W failure, but I start simple first.

[dayglored]

> I opened the chassis and found the wires connecting my processor fan to the board were sitting on top of the fan and keeping it from turning. I moved the wires and everything booted up just fine.

You're very lucky you didn't fry the CPU with its fan not turning. Perhaps it did an over-temp shutdown and saved itself (or maybe there's a tach that told the BIOS she's-a-no-spin).

In the bad old days (not very long ago) more than about 30 seconds of no-CPU-fan would turn the silicon into molten slag.

[driftdiver]

"What about Geek Squad?!"

They are too busy watching girls in the store. They never used to get that kinda action.