new computer won't boot~.... *solved!! thx all!*

[Alex]

thanks i finally got it working last night! details in last post in case anyone is curious!

--

set up my new (recycled office server) athlon64 2800+ socket754 PC... 1.5Gigs ram, asus chipset (cant recall which of the top of my head..)
anyway, boot from cd went well, starts copying windows files, i leave the room for a couple mins and return to a black screen... install isn't finished cause it won't boot from HD (just freezes with black screen) and subsequent attempts to boot from CD lead to black screen too after the "analyzing hardware config" message...

now i'm using an old 120GB Maxtor disk as my main HD... it used to be my storage drive and was set up as a dynamic disk (not sure why)... the first time i tried to set up windows i deleted the partition and quick formatted it normally and left the room... that's when i think something went wrong... EDIT: did a full format in wxp on my bros computer and the same thing happens

i ran memtest off a knoppix boot cd and actually used the knoppix OS for ages last night and everything went fine... i hope its just a badly formatted HD or something...

basically what happens is it says "analyzing hardware config" then the message disappears and instead of the new blue wxp screen that loads drivers and stuff the screen just remains black with nothing on it. the system doesn't hang though cause caps lock works and ctrl+alt+del works too. there is no activity from the HDD Led... after about 5 seconds there is a decrease in case noise, like all the fans turning off (they stay on though), but its like "voooom" and the whole case becomes quiet and it just stays like that indefinitely...

anywaY, any thoughts, opinions, advice really appreciated! thanks!

-frang

PS - i think its weird that knoppix booted perfectly and the OS worked fine... can i read anything into that like the hardware is ok etc?

 

[Alex]

bump

 

[Lalakai]

even with bad hd, you should get some posting as it runs through cmos. incomplete os, will also give something until you hit the error point. for the screen to go completely blank, sounds like motherboard issue or v-card issue. start with basics; make sure all connnections are good, replace cmos battery, also consider resetting your cmos (but that's an outside possibility). Good luck.

 

[Insidious]

check fans and seating of heat sink on CPU.... Failing/overheating PSU is also a possible.

commonly, when you run for a while then crap out it is due to overheating of a failing component or improper heat removal.

-Sid

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: Insidious
check fans and seating of heat sink on CPU.... Failing/overheating PSU is also a possible.

commonly, when you run for a while then crap out it is due to overheating of a failing component or improper heat removal.

-Sid

there is no overheating going on i'm sure, temps are at around 30 C

i've checked all connections and everything is fine, the weird thing is it worked fine before, all I changed was added more RAM and changed the video card and all of a sudden it doesn't work...

i've already tried removing the new RAM and it didn't help...

anyone have any more suggestions???

basically what happens is it says "analyzing hardware config" then the message disappears and instead of the new blue wxp screen that loads drivers and stuff the screen just remains black with nothing on it. the system doesn't hang though cause caps lock works and ctrl+alt+del works too. there is no activity from the HDD Led... after about 5 seconds there is a decrease in case noise, like all the fans turning off (they stay on though), but its like "voooom" and the whole case becomes quiet and it just stays like that indefinitely...

 

[Insidious]

You need to identify what IS changing when 'the case goes quiet'

what do you have that makes sound besides fans?

still sounds like PSU problem to me. You will draw more power when drivers load and your periferals change op mode. (specifically the vid. card, sound card, IDE controllers)

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: Insidious
You need to identify what IS changing when 'the case goes quiet'

what do you have that makes sound besides fans?

still sounds like PSU problem to me. You will draw more power when drivers load and your periferals change op mode. (specifically the vid. card, sound card, IDE controllers)

ok so what changes when the 'case goes quiet' is the CDrom drive. whilst i attempt to boot from it its noisy and then a couple seconds after the error it stops spinning and quiets down. everything else remains the same.

as for the PSU, its 450W. I disconncted my second CD drive and also changed video cards from my AGP Radeon9500 pro (that needs extra power) to a 32mb PCI card... i also removed the extra RAM leaving only 1x 512 and reset the CMOS.

same thing happened.

the weird thing is it used to work perfectly before like i said... all i changed was the CD drives, 1 extra HD, video card and RAM. video card and ram have been eliminated and switched back to original configs. i tried 2 different CD drives (both new) and nothing worked.

as for the HD, if i managed to format it under wxp as a slave drive in my bros comp doesn't that alone mean its working??

 

[Insidious]

You are doing a good job of isolating potential problem components. It sounds like you are down to a PSU (yes... I know it's 450W rated.... that doesn't mean it is working properly) or possibly a faulty motherboard (I believe less likely)

Do you have access to another PSU or someone who would loan you theirs long enough to see if it works?

-Sid

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: Insidious
You are doing a good job of isolating potential problem components. It sounds like you are down to a PSU (yes... I know it's 450W rated.... that doesn't mean it is working properly) or possibly a faulty motherboard (I believe less likely)

Do you have access to another PSU or someone who would loan you theirs long enough to see if it works?

-Sid

i have an old 400W PSU lying around... i might try it out...

one thing though: if its the PSU why does the computer stay on?? and also why does knoppix boot?

knoppix has worked perfectly, that alone seems to suggest its not necessarily a hardware issue...

 

[sniperruff]

try unplugging everything (1 stick of RAM, no PCI cards, one hard drive, one optical drive, etc etc), making sure the jumpers are set correctly, then install windows again.

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: franguinho

Originally posted by: Insidious
You are doing a good job of isolating potential problem components. It sounds like you are down to a PSU (yes... I know it's 450W rated.... that doesn't mean it is working properly) or possibly a faulty motherboard (I believe less likely)

Do you have access to another PSU or someone who would loan you theirs long enough to see if it works?

-Sid

i have an old 400W PSU lying around... i might try it out...

one thing though: if its the PSU why does the computer stay on?? and also why does knoppix boot?

knoppix has worked perfectly, that alone seems to suggest its not necessarily a hardware issue...

I'm really not trying to convince you it is a hardware problem.... or anything else. Just trying to help you out.

-Sid

(I have no idea why your knopix works and nothing else does... )

 

[Alex]

ok this is just weird...

i'm installing mandrake 9.1 right now... works perfectly so far *knock on wood*

is there any good reason why linux would work and not windows???

 

[Alex]

BUMP! please help!!

i installed mandrake and it worked fine except for garbled video but i guess it just didnt like my old-school Rage128 card... i then booted off the wxp CD and it worked fine and copied all setup files then reboots and it won't go past the 'Press any key to boot from CD.....' message. i remove the CD drive from the boot list and try again and it just gives an empty black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left...

so i decide to try another linux distro and successfully install redhat 9... same video problem though.

then i gave up.

so i'm going to try my radeon9500 pro instead of the rage128 card and see if that fixes the video problems in linux. but really i don't want linux!!!

also how to explain the weird behaviour... it just refuses to load the windows installer after all files have been copied to the disk...

 

[NaughtyGeek]

I had this same problem after a failed overclocking atempt on my Maxtor 250 Gb SATA HDD. I had another hard drive so I loaded XP on it and once it was installed and running I put the 250 Maxtor in as a slave drive and booted into XP. Once there, I formatted the 250 Maxtor and started over. Worked great. I think the ram you added was bad or timed incorrectly and wrote bad data to your HDD boot sector and now windows gets confused by something on the drive. My $.02.

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek
I had this same problem after a failed overclocking atempt on my Maxtor 250 Gb SATA HDD. I had another hard drive so I loaded XP on it and once it was installed and running I put the 250 Maxtor in as a slave drive and booted into XP. Once there, I formatted the 250 Maxtor and started over. Worked great. I think the ram you added was bad or timed incorrectly and wrote bad data to your HDD boot sector and now windows gets confused by something on the drive. My $.02.

hmm i have 2 HDDs a 120GB WD that i was using as a storage drive but copied it over to a new 160GB maxtor and i've been trying to install windows on the WD...i guess i can switch it over again and install windows on the maxtor and just partition it....

 

[Chosonman]

It might be a bad hard drive. Maxtor = bad
I had a Maxtor and similiar problem. I would also check the RAM and us only 1 stick and see what happens

 

[Alex]

So I finally got it to work... what I did was remove my primary WD drive and booted from my secondary Maxtor as primary master. worked flawlessly.
Not sure why it didn't like the WD, maybe because it was a dynamic HD and I had been using it as a secondary non-boot drive for so long or something...
Anyway, it works, and I'm stoked... so wooohooo! :beer: