Computer Not Booting

Oh man..i'm so frusterated

This evening I unhooked/unplugged/disconnected (and while i was at it i even cleared the CMOS ) everything in my computer, because i wanted to clean the massive amounts of dust that was blanketing everthing. Anyways i was very organized and carful with all the peices. With my handy User's Manual by my side, i proceeded in putting everything back together (something which i had never done before). In the end, everything 'seemed' to be in it's proper place but i was wrong. I first started up the computer, set the time and date (only) and continued booting up. It frooze after the windows loading screen finished. It slowly got worse until i can't even get into my bios without it freezing. Any suggestions?

That depends... what exactly did you use to "clean" your case. Honestly, you really shouldn't be worried by dust that cannot be picked up from a distance with a vacuum hose... especially if you don't know what you're doing. Are you getting any beep codes? Are you sure everything is securly plugged back in? Did you knock something loose while cleaning? There is really no way for us to tell what you possibly could have done.

You did it, didn't you? You took your heatsink and/or your cpu off the motherboard and cleaned it, didn't you? And let me guess... you cleaned off the bottom of your heatsink? Congratulations. You just removed the thermal paste rendering your heatsink utterly WORTHLESS. Why do people feel the need to mess with this stuff??? From what I can tell, you cleaned off the thermal paste and now your processor is overheating, causing it to slow down and/or shutdown.

You're going to need to buy some thermal paste (a few bucks at a computer store), and then remove the heat sink, place a small dot on the bottom-middle of the heatsink and put it back on the CPU. BUT, judging by your other thread, you've gone and f-ed up the screws. SO now you're really kinda screwed. You might as well just buy another heatsink while you're at it.

Goddamn... next time, don't remove all that stuff to clean your case. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ober

you really shouldn't be worried by dust that cannot be picked up from a distance with a vacuum hose

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do NOT use a vacuum for the dust...blow it off with some compressed air

Time to get a dell!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ryan_germain

do NOT use a vacuum for the dust...blow it off with some compressed air

---

Very true. I should have mentioned that.

That, and dust doesn't hurt anything anyway, if it bothers you that much, get some fans in your case and put a filter on the intake, that will get rid of it.

lol, jeeze! Let me first get rid of these rumors *cough* ober *cough* =D of how and what i cleaned my computer with. I did not remove my cpu, though in an earlier post i was wanting too, i used compressed air to blow the dust away, and i few q-tips for the fans. As for the vacuum, i learned my lesson with my last mobo, completey wrecked it. Anyways, I followed the troubleshooting section of my manual and i got the computer to boot up (not windows) and enter the bios without it freezing. It's detecting my HD and CD-Rom (though that's sounding pretty rough). I'm going to format and reinstall winxp, but before id o that, maybe someone can help me with my front panel conections:

Code:

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              _____
              |O|O|
              ----- Power Switch
              |O|O|
              -----
              |O|O|
              -----
              |O|O| ACPI & Power LED
IDE LED        -----
              |O|O|
              -----
              |O|O|
              -----
              |O|O|
              -----
              |O|O|
SPEAKER        -----
              |O|O|
              ----- RESET
              |O|O|
              -----

---

I couldn't highlight the IDE LED pins so they are the first four above the SPEAKER pins. This is were my question resides. I don't have a cable marked IDE LED, but one marked H.D.D. LED. On my manual the first four pins above SPEAKER are labled IDE LED but on my motherboard, their labled HDDLED. So im guessing i put my H.D.D LED connector here, except it's a two pin connector, and on my motherboard it points out that it takes up 4 pins. Where do i plug my H.D.D LED cable too?

There should be a mobo manual for your board, unless you bought some pizza box system in which case I absolutely refuse to help anyone who does. They are just too proprietary and too much of a pain in the arse.

I'm not quite sure how taking your system apart could cause that mess other than what ober stated. You should not have to reinstall XP. Normally when BIOS freezes it is usually because the memory is not seated in the system correctly. However you should be getting some beep codes if this is the case.

The LED hookups will not cause your system any trouble except that the lights on the front of your case will all be hooked into the wrong things. But this won't prevent any system from booting.

Reinstalling XP is not the answer here. There is no way to screw up an installation of XP by taking your system apart. There is a way to overheat your processor however I've seen several AMDs overheat to ungodly temps and yet still work flawlessly.

Basically unless you have screwed the hardware up...perhaps by static, although this has never happened to me, then you have to pretty much be a total moron to screw the system up. It's physically impossible to hook the components up incorrectly. Tab A goes into Slot A kind of crap.

Some people shouldn't own a computer. Reach around the back side...hit the power switch, package it all up and take it back to the store. You are too stupid to own one.

(I really need that 'you are stupid' smiley from flashdaddee here)

>>You are too stupid to own one
>>I really need that 'you are stupid' smiley from flashdaddee here
yes please :D
Well thanks bubba for you answer, i still have no clue as to where one of my LED hookups hook up, but since it doesn't effect the booting, that's a worry off my chest. Thanks.

edit: once again i cleared my CMOS and everything was working fine again. I must have accidently chnaged some settings when i was trying to figure out what everything was :)

>>cleared my CMOS and everything was working fine again.

what?

hey jimbob, you have no room to talk so stfu

jrahhali, find a friend who's good with computers and have him make sure you hooked everything up correctly, I think you're beyond the help of this board, we can only do so much without being right there to actually see the victim.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jimbob1989

Who the hell is this guy; jrahhali? It sounds like he's been messing around with his computer, possibly without researching into what he was first, or at least not very well.

He's come here for help and if anything he sounds insulting.

Jimbob

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I see your rep has been set back to neutral. With comments like that, it won't take long to get you back in the red.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jimbob1989

I'm just poiting out that people are trying to help him and he's not taking it very well. Whats your problem?

Jimbob

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He was very polite actually... offering thanks and whatnot for the help that was given. Take a chill pill and go bother someone else.

>>I see your rep has been set back to neutral. With comments like that, it won't take long to get you back in the red.<<

his rep has actually been disabled...but you could still give him some either way; it's still there, but invisible.

>>Well, he was calling someone stupid!

Learn how to read, Bubba was calling him stupid

Just a few days ago a vaguely remember my LED light being green on my mobo and now it is now red. Is that bad? I mean, red doesnt' seem like a good colour , and it may indicate a problem as to why my system won't boot. :(

so why did you have to start a new thread about this...couldn't you just continue in the other "problem with booting" one??

The led of my mobo is always red, i never saw it being green...

Its a p2 so maybe its red because it wants to tell me that i should please upgrade and that the mobo wants to retire and be left alone...

Alright Waldo2k2, that's probably the best idea, to get a friend who knwos what their doing.

>>what?

What i meant by clearing my CMOS.....umm. I did what my manual told me. :). One of the troubleshooting techniches that my manual told me to do in the case of a boot failure was to clear my CMOS.

>>so why did you have to start a new thread about this...couldn't you just continue in the other "problem with booting" one??

Very true axon, my mistake. I actually cringed when i posted it. I knew someone was going to knock me for that.

Thanks for the verification GanglyLamb. I feel less stressed.

All I have to say is Jimbob you are a moron and have no room to talk about anything here until you prove yourself not to be a moron, which will probably never happen. And jrahhali sorry to hear about comp troubles :)

> Very true axon, my mistake. I actually cringed when i posted it.
Both threads merged into one.

Well dont take my word on this one...

I mean for all i know something is wrong with my mobo as well i dont know,best thing for you to do is check your Mobo manual and see what the red light means ( probably there will be different possibility´s) , then you can now ask yourself what you chaged before it got red ( any bios setting, any jumper on the Mobo itself etc...).
From there on you should find out why it was red etc...

Greets,

Ganglylamb

Ok, i found out that the red light is normal on my mobo.

My computer then gave me this error (after like 20000 boots! )
Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed
i checked it up and i had not connected my ide cables right. My 80 wire one was not hooked up to my HDD. So i changed that hoping that would slove my problem, and my computer would boot.....it didn't happen. Recieved no error this time but once again, just before the boot up screen it freezes, or restarts. um, then the power shuts off!! :eek: Now there is no red light at all and my mobo is not recieving power. No fans including my power supply is running. It's not overheating because both the powersupply and cpu are cool. This happened yesterday too, and i though i blew my powersuppy, but i tried it again hours latter and the computer came to life again. I don't knwo what else could be the problem. I am going to try to get someone over to look at it, but in the meantime any thoughs, suggestions?

Motherboard AOpen ak77-333

edit: i should mention that fact that when the system restarts at the winxp loading scree a blue screen with a bunch of writing on it flashes for a split second, not long enogh for me to tell what it is. Anybody might know what this is?

It could be a lot of things....we can only speculate, you really should just try to find someone who can take a look at it. No offense, but you're not exactly a do-it-yourself kind of computer guy...we can't really do much but make educated guesses.

Mobos and cases both have a circuit fault that will shut off the system during a direct short or power outage. Often with mine when the power goes out you cannot restart the comp once the power comes on. The green light flashes and you must turn off the black power switch on the power supply to reset the circuit breaker. Most power supplies support this and most cases also support this as well.

But just waiting should not cause the system to work. This sounds suspicously like something is overheating, cooling down and then working. When you boot the heat begins to build and the component fails....probably causing the blue screen in Windows. The problem is probably not Windows itself, but the problem is causing Windows to fail. Remember the whole thing is a system and works together. One failure can cause many other failures just like on a car leading you to correct the wrong thing. Be very careful in your diagnosis.

Best bet is to take everything off the board not necessary for booting. Unplug extra hard drives, floppies, CD-ROMS, sound card, LAN cards, etc., etc. Get your system down to just the boot drive, video card, CPU, and RAM. If you are using multiple sticks of RAM take the extra sticks out.

1. Boot the system with one of the RAM sticks. If same thing, wait, swap sticks, and boot again. Repeat until problem stops. If problem does not stop....it is not being cause by your RAM and all your sticks are good. Leave the system on for some time before rebooting and swapping sticks. We are trying to see if we can get the component to heat up, fail, and reboot the system. Also you may want to try using NO ram at all. If it fails and reboots, it's not your RAM overheating...it's another component.

2. Remove the video card from the board and and boot. You should get beep codes. Leave system on for awhile. There will be no picture but what you are looking for is if the system still shuts down automatically. If the component in question heats up again...it should theoretically cause the system to shut down no matter what task it is doing at the time - whether booting into Windows or sitting there telling you to put a video card in the mobo dummy. :)

3. If system does not fail or reboot itself.....then it is probably not a heat issue in the CPU, power supply, or board. If it was then the computer just being on should cause the component to overheat.


Basically what you want to do is try all different permutations and hardware configs to try to isolate the component that is causing the failure. Once you have ensure certain components are ok....include them in your next test because you know they are good. For instance, if you know the hard drive and video card and RAM are ok then try putting in the sound card and reboot. If problem happens....it is your sound card. If not, it is something else.

This method will show you exactly what is wrong. If it is your CPU...all of the above tests should fail eventually because there is always voltage going to the CPU. As the CPU heats up it should cause the item in question to heat up and cause the problem. If not it might be your chipset...although I doubt it because they can run just fine with no cooling fans and dont get nearly as hot as the CPU.

Also if you can get your hands on a DOS boot disk try to boot into DOS mode and just let it sit there at the command prompt. If DOS works fine...then it is most certainly something in the Windows boot process causing the problem. The only thing that will cause the computer to reboot in protected mode or real mode or any mode is a triple fault in the CPU. This can be caused by any multitude of code problems, errors, exceptions, etc. If you do not have a boot disk I have a diagnostic boot disk that I wrote that will simply boot and hang. But it does allow you to test the floppy drive, RAM, power supply, video card, etc. It's just a simple 512 byte boot sector floppy but it will show you that the CPU and everything are in working order if it boots. This is extremely useful as it is very hard to diagnose Window boots problems because so much crapola is going on.

You can try safe mode with command prompt, etc. Also you may want to boot with your Windows XP CD and let the computer sit there. If it does not crash....your hardware is fine. Choose to use the Recovery Console and then at the prompt type:

chkdsk /r

This is much more thorough than chkdsk /f or anything available in Windows. This will fix and correct any and all errors on the drive.....but it does take quite some time. If this does not fix the problem when you boot from the hard drive....reboot with XP cd and choose to repair the Windows XP installation. (choose Install, then choose repair, then select which installation of XP to repair). If this does not work when you boot from the drive, then I recommend completely wiping the drive - format (use FAT32 if you can - NTFS has major issues....directly from MS tech support). NTFS will no longer be supported once HPFS comes out. I've had NTFS.SYS get corrupted on boots, and then magically begin to work again and other weird stuff. NTFS sucks - the only person it prevents from accessing the drive is ...well....you. Everyone else can hack the stupid thing. NTFS can allow programs to put directories on your drive that you cannot get rid of, display the contents of, or erase.

This is pretty much everything I would try if I were to come to your house and fix the thing. Of course I'd also charge you $60/hour, but that's another story.

:D

Few, alright, i did everything you told me to do, it was a lot of work. Everything was unplugged from the mobo except my processor, HDD, RAM, and Video Card. Here are my results in the order that i did them in:

1) Took the RAM out and booted up, let it sit for a while (while listening to annoying beeps every 2 sec). Note: I only have one stick of RAM, so i couldn't test multiple sticks.
-->No Ram but Video Card
-->Didn't restart or freeze

2) Took the Video Card out, put the RAM in, it didn't restart or freeze.
-->RAM but NO Video Card
--> Didn't restart or freeze

3) Put the Video Card plus the RAM in, which resulted in freezing or restarting whenever it got right past the winxp loading screen
--> RAM & Video Card
--> Restarted or Froze

4) Hooked up my floppy drive (with my vid card and RAM), loaded DOS off a diskette, let it sit at the command prompt and did some simple operations like 'echo', 'dir', it was fine, didn't freeze or restart.
--> RAM, Video Card, A: Drive, Sitting At Command Prompt
--> Didn't restart or freeze

5) Hooked up my CD-Rom Drive, put in my winxp setup disc, after extracting files, frooze at the message "loading windows."
--> RAM, Video Card, A: Drive, CD-Rom - Loading Winxp Setup
--> Froze.

I think that all what you told me to try, except the chkdsk /r because i can't get into safe mode or safe mode w/ command prompt without it freezing.

Maybe some other usefull info: The computer can sit at the start up screen fine ( ei the screen where it tells you that keyboard error when it isnt' plugged in), without it freezing, but as soon as I enter the BIOS, and try to do anything there, it freezes.

This is a lot more information then "my computer is not starting, why?" :)
hope it helps

edit: Thanks a lot Bubba, i really appretiate the time that you took/are taking to help out.

Alright, I found out some more information, hopefully it's usefull.

I remembered i had another video card, I plugged that in and the bios didn't freeze or crash, put the xp cd in, it didn't freeze or crash also. So i was finally able to try to use the repair option on my xp cd. I did that and the blue screen with a bunch of writing on it i mentioned earlier came up, except this time, the computer didn't restart before i could read it. This was the message:

Quote:

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A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

The problem seems to be caused by the following file: ntfs.sys

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufactureer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as cahcing or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components, restart you computer, press F8 to select advanced startup optons, and then select safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x00000050 (0xC2F2BDA0, 0x00000001, 0xF964A007, 0x00000000)

*** ntfs.sys - Address F964A007 base at F964A000, DateStamp 3d6de5c1

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Except that no new hardware or software has been installed :confused:

I then tried to boot windows once more and this message came up before the winxp loading screen:

Quote:

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Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as :
load needed DLLs for kernel.
Please contact your support person to report this problem.

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What would be my next step?

Why would the video card that i had in it earlier make the BIOS and winxp setup cd freeze?

Just a thought, but maybe your memory timings are messed up.
You could enter the BIOS (you seem to be able to now), and check the memory timings
a) reset back to factory defaults
b) read the manual pages for your motherboard and RAM to find out what they should be

If you haven't done so already, undo any overclocking mods which you may have made, at least until its back and running.

http://www.memtest86.com/
This runs from bootstrap, which is the next thing to happen once the BIOS POST has run.
It should tell you whether your memory is really good or not.

Does it boot into safe mode? (You do know how to get to safe mode, right?)

It could always be that you just have bad hardware. I run linux, and as such, have no need to ever reboot. One day I decided to, just for the hell of it. When I did, the computer would no longer boot. As it turns out, somewhere along the line, something toasted both my motherboard and video card. (They're dead as disco. I have an identical machine which I played the hardware swapping with, and it confirmed both motherboard and video card are toast. The really odd part is the video card, since it was working seemingly perfectly, but now no computer with it in it will remain stable.)

Now the interesting part here is that linux ran just fine, until I rebooted. Then because it needed to access or check some nifty piece of hardware apparently called apparently at boot, but no place else, it couldn't boot any more.

At any rate, the moral of the story is, never reboot your linux box because you don't need to. ;)

Quzah.

>>Just a thought, but maybe your memory timings are messed up
Thanks Salem, I did that, didn't work, but i'm going to try memtest86. Just to be sure i downloaded the right one, can someone confirm:

Quote:

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Memtest86 3.1a Release (11/Mar/2004)
Enhancements in v3.1a

Added processor detection for newer AMD processors
Added new "Bit Fade" extended test
Fixed a complile time bug with gcc version 3.x.
E7500 memory controller ECC support
Added support for 16bit ECC syndromes
Option to keep the serial port baud rate of the boot loader

Download - Linux Memtest86 v3.1a Source and binary Package
Download - Pre-Compiled Memtest86 v3.1a installable from Windows and DOS

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I downloaded the second choice because i am running an amd machine

Salem, or anybody that is familiar with memtest86, i tried it out and here is my error report for one pass:

Quote:

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Test: 0 Errors: 0
Test: 1 Errors: 0
Test: 2 Errors: 0
Test: 3 Errors: 0
Test: 4 Errors: 35
Test: 5 Errors: 23887
Test: 6 Errors: 49
Test: 7 Errors: 1
Test: 8 Errors: 0 - didn't do
Test: 9 Errors: 0 - didnt' do
Test: 10 Errors: 0 - didnt' do
Test: 11 Errors: 0 - didn't do

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The first time i ran it, i did 5 passes but accidently pressed ESC :mad:
It was somwhere around 340 000 errors :eek:

Anyways, i have no clue on what this means, and the site doesn't offer much help either. Is this telling me that my memory is bad?

Ive had that problem before. A buggy computer that kept crashing and got to the point where it wouldnt load windows. I couldnt even use restore on it because it would crash on me.

But while installing linux (I was trying everything) I noticed it having errors with memory addresses beside them) And sure enough, I took one of my memory cards out and I am using that PC right now.

well think about it man, if you got that many errors while testing your ram, means your ram is probably bad..why not try using a stick you know is good?

>>if you got that many errors while testing your ram, means your ram is probably bad
true, but just wanted to be sure. I wouldn't want to go buy something to try to fix my computer and have it not be the problem.


>>why not try using a stick you know is good?
I only have one stick of ram. My mobo i have doens't support the other ones i have ='(

Thanks for the confirmation, both of you, your probably right. I just hope it's only my ram. I"m going to take the stick to one of my friends computers tommorrow, see if it works on there system.

cheers.

edit: And GOOD NIGHT! :o (sort of lookslike yawning :p )

Freezing in the BIOS has nothing to do with RAM. Of course BIOS code is ROM on the chip and is mapped to FFFF:0000 - FFFF:FFFF. Settings for the BIOS are mapped to somewhere in this area as well. If this portion of memory is bad then theoretically nothing should work since this is where BIOS is mapped to.

It could be the RAM but I'm not positive. You need to know what memtest86 is checking on the test(s) that your RAM fails on. Perhaps it is testing something at that time that your RAM does not support - which would not indicate a problem, it would indicate your RAM does not support every function in the universe available for RAM. For instance testing parity on non-parity RAM will certainly fail even if the RAM is in perfect condition.

It's something in the bootup process for Windows, backed up by the fact that safe mode does not work as well. It sounds like your NTFS.SYS file has been corrupted. I got the same exact error the other day when I booted. Rebooted 4 times and still no icons, no nothing. Finally rebooted again and everything worked. Scanned the drive for errors....nothing.

For me and perhaps for you this points to a possible fault in the hard drive mechanics and/or circuitry. That sort of problem will cause some very weird stuff to take place. Perhaps your drive, like mine, is in danger of an imminent crash.

I really think if it was your RAM...you wouldn't even see the Windows XP logo screen...it would crash way before that. Also other funky stuff would happen during execution of Windows and other programs. It would be like having code with a bunch of NULL pointers in it, something you could easily tell was being cause by memory and/or code problems.

http://www.memtest86.com/#details
Test 5 is a stress test of memory bandwidth as far as I can tell, moving large blocks of memory as fast as possible.
Taking a guess, I'd say the mobo is trying to access RAM just a little too quickly, and its occasionally failing.
Try setting slower memory access parameters in the BIOS.

Also, until you know the speed of the RAM, turning off "BIOS shadowed into RAM" or whatever option copies BIOS into RAM is perhaps a good idea.

Well I didn't want to say it right away, but there's a chance that the ram is good, and the processor is bad ;) . A bad processor would keep him from getting acurrate memtest results. You REALLY should take this computer in to someone who can work on it hands on, don't go out and buy components becuase they're our best guess...we wouldn't want you to waste money.

Waldo2k2, I'm going to fix this myself!! :mad:
:D
But seriously, if i can't get it done, i'll go to a person who can take a better look at it, and at this point, i have not done everything i can do. You seem like you really care for the wellfare of my system though :)

Thanks Salem for the suggestion, but the option was already disabled.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Bubba
Freezing in the BIOS has nothing to do with RAM. Of course BIOS code is ROM on the chip

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Just out of curiousity, why would a video card have the BIOS to crash? As i mentioned earlier, my newer MX440SE-T video card makes the bios freeze, while it doesn't freeze with my older XENTOR32 Ultra? Why a video card?

Good news, I brought my ram and my video card (mx440se-t) to my friends house, he tested the both and the work fine on his system. So it's now down to my
1) power supply
2) cpu
3) HDD
4) (i hope not) my motherboard

Also, he lent me a working HDD and CR-ROm drive :)
My cd rom drive may not be functioning correctly because the two times i tried to install winxp and win2k, both struggled when they were copying files. Though, this could be my HDD fault to. So i thought that was nice.

You can easily set Windows XP to pause so you can read the blue screens.

Start->Control Panel->System->Advanced->Startup and Recovery Settings button

Uncheck Automatically Restart under System Failure.

Now you should be able to read the blue screen.

But again, you got some strange problems there....get it checked out.

Do you have a spare power supply you could use, or a computer you could fish one out of?

I've had hard drives that seemed to have bad PSU power connector jacks to where my computer will lock up, and freeze, but if I wggled the plug, or pushed it in really firm, the hard drive would click, wind back up, and we'd be back in business.

I was searching for a web site that explained how to troublshoot power supplies, to find out if it is really faulty or not and i came across this site: http://www.fonerbooks.com/pcrepair.htm

I found it really helpful becuase it contains flowcharts for diagnosing and repairing PCs as well as discussions on each topic in the flowchart. I'm going to be posting this in the general discussion board also. Anyways, i was reading the psu troublshooting part and i came across this:

Quote:

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Unstable voltage problems are real ghosts in the machine, and can mimic all sorts of other problems. If you get into a flaky failure situation that you can't diagnose and you've already started troubleshooting (i.e. swapping parts), you may as well try a new power supply as well. I've seen power supplies produce some really bizarre failures, like a PC that reboots when you set your coffee cup down too hard on the table. The most pervasive of the unstable power supply problems are random lockups or spontaneous reboots. Modern motherboards have some ability to regulate the power they receive, but it's got to be within a reasonable range. When it starts overshooting the limits, the system may freeze or shutdown the motherboard to protect itself.

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Sounded awfully familar :eek:
So before i go out and buy or borrow a new psu, i know there's some variables that need to be considered like if it can supply enough power for you system. How do i go about borrowing or buying the right one?

> How do i go about borrowing or buying the right one?
Well, give me the model number of your PSU. There should be a sticker on it somewhere. If you want to tackle it, search for your PSUs model number on Google and find out everything you can about it.

Or, make sure the one you're buying or borrowing(I suggest borrowing first!) has the same hookups to your motherboard.

if you can get your computer to boot (can't remember what you said you have to remove) get into the bios and monitor the voltages, watch how much they spike....they shouldn't go plus or minus very much, a few tenths of a volt.

I came home this afternoon, checked on the computer and the motherboard wasn't receiving any power. Strange i though, the cord is plugged in. Checked out my psu and it was very hot. The computer hadn't even been on for 2 days! Plus, i heard that typically AMD computer need 400w psu +. I am running a athlong xp 1800+ processor with 300w psu :eek: . I'm pretty sure i remeber when i bought the parts for my computer, i knew i had to get a more powrful psu but i didn't bother. I got a way with it for a while. Furthermore, i do remember ocasionally where my computer after a restart would just fail to boot. I had to take out the plug for the power supply, wait a few minutes then put it back in.

I'm wondering though, because i had an insufficient psu, is there ea change that it damaged my other hardware, or just the power supply itself?

My model number by the way is: LC-300ATX

What kind of power supply should i be looking at now?

well if insufficient means underpowered, you're probably ok and you should buy either a 400w psu (any brand that has hi-pot, burn in, etc) or an antec true power 350w minimum. Make sure whatever you buy actually has a fan on it so that the psu itself stays cool. You could get by with a really nice 300w psu, but why risk it? You need to upgrade your psu anyway, so go buy one and see if that helps, if not....then back to the drawing board i guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrahhali

I came home this afternoon(...)Checked out my psu and it was very hot. The computer hadn't even been on for 2 days!(...)

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Short-circuit?????????

> I had to take out the plug for the power supply, wait a few minutes then put it back in.
Had a computer do that for the longest time and I really thought it was the power supply. I ran into that many times. I'd just leave it off for a few mintues even with the cord plugged in. Eventually, it'd come back on.

Anyways, one day it didn't just come back on. Replaced the power cord hasn't done it since.

did you make sure you pluging the cpu's fan back in
lol i made that mistake once.. ill never make it again lol
thank god i caught i tquickly enough it didnt burn up :)


also for you buying a power supply, dont just look at the watts
look at the amperage, cause if the amperage is low no matter what the wattage is it wont be worth what you think it is.

>>cause if the voltage is low no matter what the wattage is it wont be worth what you think it is

??
all atx psu's are designed to run at certain voltages, no one is going to advertise a psu as having low voltages :)...of course you don't just want to buy the cheapest psu out there (which is kind of what you meant right?), that's why I recommended the true power psu's if he's in doubt.

ahhh, sorry i realized i said votls, i ment amps lol
you should make sure when you check the specs thats
the amps are decent, if you dont know anything about
power supplys you should do a search on google
cause there alot of crappy ones out there.

Just to give you a clue in the right direction, I gave newegg a quick once over and any one of these would be a good choice.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-912&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...154-010&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...103-914&DEPA=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...153-005&depa=0

Wow, thanks a alot Waldo2k2. :)
So when buying a psu, i'm not only looking for the wattage and the quality (usually estimated from the price), but also the amps. Cool, i can do that :D!
Thanks guys, i'll let you know what happens. Hopefully my computer will finally boot!

edit: And you too JarJarBinks. You are not an afterthought, just the victim of me pressing the submit button too fast ;)

yea my current power supply, i lucked out with, i had no clue
about amps and stuff when i bought this power supply
its 500W power supply i forget the brand anyways
my friend told me about the amps to check then
and he said for the 12V 18A or more was better
and mine has 25A, so that made me happy lol

This is the beast that's powering my pc:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...148-005&depa=0


::edit::
to read the specs, you have to click view images, then look at the close up of the specs on the white box...my eyes are bad so I couldn't tell you what it is off hand.

AMD and Intel both have web pages that have recommended power supply manufacturers on them. Not suprisingly the lists are very similar.

I havn't had much time to work on the computer, but tonight i did. My computer is still not working but i'm making progess =D

Anyways, i wanted to try a bench test, after it being recommended, except my mother board wont' come out! I've unscrewed ALL the screws, checked it over so many times to see if there was some i forgot, and there is no plastic plugs. It seems to be stuck near the I/O ports. There no external devices plugged into it though. Any ideas? :confused:

Arghhh, its probably one of those pesky I/O shields. There are usually little metal tabs and whatnot that might get jammed into a port or around a port. I run one of my PCs without one because it was too challenging to get the motherboard in with the thing installed hahahaha.

:) thanks pablo, yoru right. Took off the io sheild an came out beautfuly..well sortof...You see i sorta missed a screw. But it was in the middle of the board!! lol Thanks alot

Quote:

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You see i sorta missed a screw. But it was in the middle of the board!! lol Thanks alot

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Thats ok, just pull on it hard enough and the board will come out. Those middle screws don't really do anything at all. It's them outer one's you gotta be aware of.

WOW! lol. Five pages of trouble and now some good news! My computer is back up and running! It turns out it was the way i screwed the screws into the motherboard. I remember when i was first cleaning the computer, where the problem began, i unscrews the motherboard but it was having difficuly coming out. I just left it becuase it wasn't that dirty anyways. I remember scrweing the screws back in, it was a STRUGGLE. They were going in on a bit of a angle and it seemed really tight. After doing a few bench tests where the comptuer was actually booting up, the day i scewed the screws in (above) came to mind. I was sure this was the prolem. So when i put the mobo back in, i made sure all the screws went in the proper way, and if there was any tenstion or uneccesary presure, i wouldn't use that standoff. I also didnt' tightent the screws very hard. And voila! My comptuer booted up and was working beautfilly. So it's back up and running. Who knew that a few little screws could cause such a mess! The made all my compenents a suspect.

I learned alot and even though it was so frusterating, i'm glad it happened in a way. Thanks to Waldo2k2, Bubba, Salem and to everyone that helped me out. cheers. :)