Hey, my parent's PC has been having problems recently. It was one I built from old components that I've upgraded from. Here are the specs: Intel Celeron 2.93 Ghz Asus P4V8X-X MoBo 1 x 512 Kingston PC2700 1 x 512 UltrA PC2700 GeForce 4 MX 4000 Maxtor 60 GB HD Thermaltake 430 W PSU Windows XP It had been running just fun until recently. It gets through the bios page just fine, but right before it hits the Windows loading screen, the screen goes black and stays black until I restart. Half the time it starts without issue, the other half it messes up. I checked all my connections and everything seems to be in place. Does anyone have any ideas of where to go from here? Faulty hardware perhaps? I appreciate any help you can provide.
No expert, but sounds like the OS is corrupt. Have you tried restoring to last known good configuration? Your PSU isn't all that great either, keep your eye on that, Thermaltake is known to fail for no reason whatsoever. Edit: I didn't see that sometimes it starts up, and others it doesn't. So... I dunno.
Thanks for the help. I should actually say it only starts up fine 1 in every 3 tries. When it doesn't startup and I reboot, I'll get the menu asking if I wanna go into safemode, start Windows normally, or go to last known good configuration. The problems have occurred when choosing both "Normal" and "Last Known". And when you guys say "reinstall Windows", should I just reinstall over what's here, or should I erase my HD in the process?
Well, I never said to reinstall the OS. I don't think that's it, personally. I don't know what the problem is but someone else has to. Sorry.
Hi, Try this 1. Reset BIOS and also( check the cmos battery by monitoring time ) 2. Thorough scan the HDD.( if you are able to boot or from winxp CD recovery console) if that does not work? 3. if you can boot on last known good configuration create a restore point and restart in safe mode and un install all the chipset and device drivers(chipset inf /agp /sound/ printer etc.). restart the system. any query?
Thanks for replying guys. @Dvs3d, when you said "CMOS battery", I didn't know what you meant. I know of CMOS, but not the COS battery. So I googled it and I came up with a picture that might have solved my problem. I remember that when I switched MoBos from this to my current Abit board, I had noticed something on the floor. It looked like a coin-sized battery. As any idiot would do, I discarded the battery and thought nothing of it. I wasn't planning on using the MoBo again, so I didn't worry about it. But this might be something that the PC needs to work properly. So when I saw the image, I checked the MoBo to see if there was a spot where it could fit if I still had it. I saw a similar battery on the board, but no spot for a second. But I'm certain it belonged to this board. Maybe it fit over the battery already there? So I'm thinking my MoBo is missing a CMOS battery somewhere on the board. Not sure where, but this doesn't seem like a coincidence. Is this something replaceable? Can I buy these online or maybe obtain them from the manufacturer? Are the batteries specific for each board? Thanks to anyone that can help me out, and I hope everyone's having a happy holidays.
