my computer wont start.....Help!!!!

[githanis]

I have a 900mhz amd athlon processor, on an old msi motherboard, in an antec case, with a geforce 3 video card, a soundblaster gamer sound card, about 512 mg ram, on windows xp. everything was working fine, my son was playing a game on his user profile (restricted access), when he came and told me that something went wrong with the computer so he turned it off. i went and turned it back on and nothing happens. with the computer on, you cant restart the computer the computer off the case's button, or een do a hard shut down off the cases button. The only way to turn it off is un plug it. I've left it alone for a while and tried turning it back on, nd nothing. I've powered it down and back up again about 20 times now, every once in a while I get to the detecting ide line when the computer normally starts, then it will go to a screen saying chose a way to start the computer 9normal, safe, etc) It always locks though before I can do anything. I've made boot disk and put it in, but it didnt do anything. just locked right back up on the blank screen, or the safe/normal selection screen (with the disk in). After it locks up, the monitor goes into standby mode and turns off every time too. I have not installed any new hardware, and the sofeware on the omputer has been there for a long time except one game that I installed 2 days before this happened. Its a kids game called bugs life, but it installed and played fine for 2 days. I'm very upset and frustrated, and need my computer back up and running. Someone please help me please!!!!!!!

 

[spanky]

with the computer on, you cant restart the computer the computer off the case's button, or een do a hard shut down
off the cases button.

is there something wrong with ur power button? u can switch the reset button to handle the power by swapping around the cables to the motherboard. but those lock ups u get seem to indicate another hardware problem. my guess is motherboard or power supply.

 

[Orunitia]

Just a note. If your mobo uses the standard ATX form (which I'm sure it does) that means your power switch works on softwiring as oppose to hardwiring. To turn your computer off when it locks up like the way you describe you actually need to hold the power button down for around 4 seconds or so to turn it off.

Originally posted by: githanis
The only way to turn it off is un plug it. I've left it alone for a while and tried turning it back on, nd nothing. I've powered it down and back up again about 20 times now, every once in a while I get to the detecting ide line when the computer normally starts, then it will go to a screen saying chose a way to start the computer 9normal, safe, etc) It always locks though before I can do anything. I've made boot disk and put it in, but it didnt do anything. just locked right back up on the blank screen, or the safe/normal selection screen (with the disk in).

Does your system at least complete the POST each time you turned it back on out of all the 20x you tried? If it only POST's succssfully sometimes and not others then I'll probably agree it's a PSU issue. Did this problem ever come up in the past on this system?

Also, did you remember to set the boot seq in your BIOS to check your floppy drive first when you attempted to startup using the boot disk you made?