Can a HD lock up a PC or crash during BIOS bootup?

[Rob94hawk]

I have an old rig that has been locking up during games, just after booting up, and locks up during BIOS.

I've swapped out the cpu and hard drives to a new mobo and psu and it still crashes. I also ran memtest86 for 15 hours with no errors.

I can only rule out that I have a bad HD out of the two. But would this cause even BIOS lockups?

System specs:
PIII 1.4Ghz/640MB PC100
ATI 9700 128MB
Intel BX mobo
Maxtor 13GB HD (from 1998)
Maxtor 30 GB HD

[Rob94hawk]

This whole thing doesn't make any sense. I know the old fart rig isn't going to boot up when the rear fan doesn't spin up! What the hell is that all about? It's got a new mobo and psu?!?!

Also the monitor at times doesn't even go on when the rear fan doesn't work! This happens even with the new graphics card and the old one!

WTF?!?!

[Thor]

sounds more like a bad PSU to me, not provideing enought juice to even spin up a fan , the fan over draws, dosent let the HD spin up... ect... i would try a new PSU first things first.. (and get rid of the fan while your at it.... ) it could be the HD has a short , which would make the PSU seem bad... it dose happen, but the PSU is the cheaper of the 2 usually, and more likely to cause the issues you describe

thore

[linderman]

Sounds like a PSU to me too >>>>> the hard drive is not able to make a fan power failure ???

dont mess with cheap gneric PSU's >>>>> the cheapest PSU i have seen that is worth installing is the Antec SP-500 they are around $68.00 at newegg.com DONT mess witht he NEO sereis (big time junk)

any spending less than that will probally bring you right back to square one

goodluck

joe

[Rob94hawk]

Since the psu is new and the same thing was happening before I swapped the psu I'm going to try unpluging the fan since it's old. This might be it considering it's plugged in the mobo and when I boot up I get no video.

If this isn't it then it's the HD by process of elimination.

[Rob94hawk]

Looks like the rear fan was locking the whole mobo up! Ever since I unplugged it I haven't had a problem.

How the hell can a fan crash windows and make it lock up?!?

[unhappy_mage]

Maybe it's shorted out and causing the power supply to deliver the wrong voltage? Newegg has some fans from Masscool for $1 each if you buy 10 or more; get a few of those and you'll never run out.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[Rob94hawk]

Edit: It's not the fan. Rig still crashes without the fan.

Gonna trash the whole rig and build new.

[unhappy_mage]

YGPM in a few.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)