odd problem with wife's puter

[allanon1965]

this is very odd, my wife's pc wont boot from floppy,hdd,or cdrom, the specs are:win xp pro sp2, asrock K7S8XE+ with 512mb pc3200 ddr, geforce ti 4200, envision 19 inch flat screen crt, 60 gig maxtor hdd, 3.5 floppy, sony dvd,sony dvd-rw, 2500 barton processor,phillips sound card, realtek ethernet card,550 watt elements psu(very very heavy!) accoustic athority speaker system(10 inch subwoofer). it has been working fine since i built it a few months ago i have switched out every single component with the exception of the motherboard, what happened was earlier this week the monitor would flicker once in awhile, like it was refreshing the page, exactly like when you hit refresh on the browser, this went on for a few days then stopped. today she left the room and when she came back, the monitor was black, pc running, no video, she rebooted several times and finally got it to boot back up, i came home from work a couple hours later and burned some things she wanted saved and was going to reformat it. when i shut it down to start to reformat it would post, but when it got to the screen where win xp searched for hardware, it stopped. tried to boot from floppy with win98 boot disc, screen goes black after it successfully detects hard drives and cd/dvd roms...i think the bios has become corrupt on the motherboard or something like that.....i have no problems getting into the bio screens and changing things but still no boot, ran memtest, no problems, substituted ram, hdd, cd-rom,psu,video card, removed ethernet card and sound card, everything but the motherboard, even swapped out the ide cables and tried booting with only video,ram, with hdd and without it....still no go.....going to replace the motherboard tomorrow.....anybody else had this problem? UPDATE: the flicker was actually her homepage refreshing every 5 minutes......moved this thing into my computer work area and now it boots....must be a grounding issue or flakey board.......either way the mb is getting replaced and i will continue working on this one as time allows.....thanks!

 

[Woody419]

A friends computer sometimes doesn't boot. Unplugging the USB printer fixes it, plug the printer back in and everything works fine again for few months. Go figure.

 

[allanon1965]

yea i even unplugged the front usb connectors thinking that might be causing it, but no joy

 

[airfoil]

Me thinks the 'Enter' key on the keyboard you were using is perhaps broken?


par·a·graph

1. A distinct division of written or printed matter that begins on a new, usually indented line, consists of one or more sentences, and typically deals with a single thought or topic or quotes one speaker's continuous words.

2. A mark ( ¶ ) used to indicate where a new paragraph should begin or to serve as a reference mark.

3. A brief article, notice, or announcement, as in a newspaper.

 

[imported_Owl]

I had the same problem with a Soyo KT600 MB. The trays on my optical drives wouldn't open. They were recognized in the bios and in device manager. I even replaced them with a dvd rom from another computer I have. Same thing happened; recognized in bios and in device manager but trays don't function. I even reset the cmos. Even replaced ide cables. Had the 80's not the old 40's.
Next I opened the tray manually, put in a copy of XP in an attempt to reinstall windows, but windows doesn't recognize a cd is in the dvd rom. It keeps telling me to put a cd in dvd rom when it is already in there. BTW all these optical drives work fine in my other computer.
I contacted Soyo technical support three weeks ago, and naturally have heard nothing. They're probably busy helping the rebate depatment catch up.
Finally threw up my hands and ordered a cheap Gigabyte board from Newegg. When it got here I swapped out all the parts, and the system is perfect. The problem was the Soyo MB, but I still don't understand what happened. Still waiting on Soyo's advice but not holding my breath.

 

[allanon1965]

i tried 3 different keyboards no joy, its got to be an issue with the mb or case shorting or the mb just being flakey.....its working fine right now, but the mb is being replaced tonight!

 

[allanon1965]

well its been a few days now and her new mb is working flawlessly and her old board is also working flawlessly in another case....i guess there was someting wrong with the other case not being a good fit so to speak....well thats the only explanation i have for why it acted like that....time will tell though, as i am going to use her old one at work......

 

[Dragonbate]

I'd check the hd for problems befor putting data on it I didn't want to lose.

 

[allanon1965]

it is a brand new 60 gig drive, and i had substituted 3 known good drives with exact same results, but i did double check her new drive, it was fine...it appears the board had to be grounding out somewhere on the case, it was kinda flimsy.....its in a sturdier case now and no problems.....go figure

 

[allanon1965]

well, here is the final chapter in this story....it turned out it was the processor......it was the only common thing to the situation as her new mb didnot make a difference....it went dead a week after putting it in, i swapped out the 2500 barton and the thing fired up, trie the barton in my system, no go.....never had a cpu do that to me, it wasnt oc'ed and was running cool....really odd, but at least i know now what was happening....