i845HV appears to be fried

[Starfinder]

I was attempting to install a Hauppauge WinTV 350 PCI card in my PC tonight, and when I powered on, my BIOS went into RAM testing and whatnot (RAM is okay, for what that's worth.) I took the card out and attempted to power on again, thinking the card was the problem, and it starts doing the same thing. I attempt, with varying configurations, again, all with the same result. My USB keyboard and mouse no longer power on; I have to use the PS/2 adapter for it to work at all. When I attempt to enter BIOS it sits there for a moment, goes to a flashing cursor, then asks me for the "CURRENT password," with current in caps like that. Problem is, my BIOS has no password and never has. After a few failed password entries, it shunts me to a "Boot Failure: System Halted" message and just hangs.

I attempted to flash the BIOS with a floppy disk but since it never gets to the part in the startup sequence where it queries the floppy drive, it's useless. I hope someone has an idea, I can't afford to spend too much on replacing this damned thing.

It's an Intel 845HV with a P4 1.6 GHz, 768 MB SDRAM, with a GeForce 4 Ti4400 video card, an old SoundBlaster Live! MP3 card for sound, and a similarly old HP ethernet card. Right now the only thing left in is the video card. Two hard drives and disc drives too, but since it never gets that far, I don't think they matter. Any help would be appreciated. I don't have much to spend on it. I'm hoping someone can tell me that it's not fried, but I won't hold my breath.

-patrick

 

[LTC8K6]

Have you tried clearing the CMOS?

Double check that you haven't knocked anything loose like the CPU cooler or a cable or something.

Make sure that when you install a card in an ATX board that you turn the power supply off or unplug it. ATX boards are still hot unless you do one of those 2.


Maybe your power supply is acting up?

 

[Starfinder]

The power supply was indeed unplugged when I made all these attempts... ok, I'll take a look at the cables... how do I clear the CMOS? A keypress combination?

 

[Starfinder]

Found the CMOS clear jumper and used a recovery diskette. It seems to be okay now, and I'm typing this from my computer instead of my girlfriend's now (the TV card is even installed and detected by WinXP), but I still have no idea what happened. Just a random static discharge mucking up the BIOS?

 

[LTC8K6]

Yeah, could have been static. Maybe you have a poltergeist?