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Am I Completely Screwed???

M

mdk30

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 29, 2004
Messages
1,028
Two days ago my computer seemed to be working fine. Last night when I got home from work and went to turn it on I was greeted to a blank screen and a system that wouldn't even boot. I'm talking you turn the thing on and you don't even get a video signal, the hard drive light indicator stops flashing 3 seconds after the power is turned on, but everything else is running. The fans are spinning, optical drive trays open and close, HSF is running, but I get absolutely NO video feed and like I said, the hard drive seems to not be doing anything after about 3 seconds.

I checked my connections for loose cables and power connectors but they all seem to be fine. My guess, and worst fear, is that the hard drive has just died and I may have just lost all of my data.

I'm really looking for any help or suggestions anyone might have, but if in fact my hard drive is completely shot, would I still not even get a video signal at all?? That's the thing I'm unsure of because I thought that I'd at least see SOMETHING even if my hard drive went bad. Anyway, thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
 
I'm assuming your not seeing the post information. If thats the case, there is a problem with the vid card/memory/mbo/ or cpu. If you unplug the monitor from the computer do you get the self test? Do you have another vidcard you can try? Have you tried resetting cmos? You might also want to try seeing if it will post with just the parts I listed above. Also, are you getting any beeps from the comptuer?
 
mdk30 said:
I checked my connections for loose cables and power connectors but they all seem to be fine. My guess, and worst fear, is that the hard drive has just died and I may have just lost all of my data.
Click to expand...
A hard drive is not required for the computer to complete POST. And that's what's happening to your computer, it's not POSTing. So don't worry about your hard drive; that's not the problem.

Have you tried resetting the CMOS? Always start by trying the easiest solutions first. Then move on to booting with minimum required harware, then start swapping easy parts, then reseat CPU/HSF. At least that's the order I normally follow.
 
You're right, I'm not POSTing at all, I don't see anything on my screen and my monitor is working properly. I don't get ANY beeping either by the way. I'm going to try resetting the CMOS when I get home and see if that helps. Hopefully it works, I've never done it before so I'll be crossing my fingers and praying that that's all it will take. I'll post back here after I try that... Thanks for your suggestions so far guys!
 
Some more info, maybe? Specs? Did you build it yourself? If not, call dell or whoever makes it.
Try resetting your CMOS jumper.
Sounds like either your RAM, CPU, or MOBO died, though. What's difficult is figuring out which one.
 
Strip the system down. You can either pull the cards one by one and see when you either start to post or you finally get system beep codes. As of lately I've been running into quite a few modems shorting systems out. A motherboard completely striped without any cards and memory will give you beep codes if the mobo and processors are fine.
 
OK, as for the "more info," no it's not a Dell. I built the system myself a couple years ago. It consists of:

Athlon XP 2000+
Chaintech 7VJL Apogee (VIA KT333) mobo
1 Gig of 2700 DDR RAM
120 Gig Western Digital HD
Radeon 9800 Non-Pro
SB Audigy
Antec 330W True Power PSU

I'll post more info later if the CMOS reset doesn't work. Thanks.
 
Well I'm typing this from the computer in question and letting out a big sigh of relief that the CMOS reset was all that was needed. I've never had to do that before to get my computer to boot but at least I learned something new and useful. I have no idea what caused the problem but I'm just glad its seemingly fixed and I still have all my data (knock on wood). Thanks for all the support guys!
 
Yeah, first thing to try when your comp doesn't post is reset CMOS. Your bios could have been reset by many things, e.g. bad boot device malfunction or something... but glad you fixed it.
 
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