• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Computer won't start AT ALL

J

Johnnylig

Weaksauce
Joined
May 6, 2003
Messages
94
Ok, i'm really really confused right now. About four months ago we decided to order and build a new computer for my sister (hers was a piece of junk)

anyways, we get the parts and I assemble them, only to find that the computer acts wierd. It randomly crashes and won't start up half the time (requires me to pop in winxp pro disc and run "fixboot.exe"??)

But that was only a temporary fix. It got much worse. I tried reformatting countless times, installing different operating systems (six different ones to date, most of them crashed during installation countless times as well, or got bluescreened) but to no avail. I do believe it is a hardware problem. So the first thing I do is put the radeon 7500 I had borrowed back in, took out the wireless nic, reseated the ram in the first slot, and took out the 80gb hard drive. I had originally thought the HD was the problem, so I replaced it with a 20gb HD that had windows installed.

"Great, now it's going to work" I think to myself. Unfortunately, I only get to the "start windows normally" screen before it crashes after selection. I've tried everything and i'm pretty much stuck here. I really hope to god it isn't the ram or motherboard, because I don't have money to buy replacements for her.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated. i've been trying to fix this for months.

and the specs for the pc are:

-2.7ghz celeron
-radeon 7500
-512mb 2100 ddr
-a cheapass biostar mobo (via chipset, don't recall which mobo it is offhand though)
-and some gateway 200w(i think?) powersupply off an old gateway comp.

thanks in advance
 
Originally posted by Sole Conspirator
Sounds like memory is suspect to me. Did you test it out with a program like Memtest??
Click to expand...

nope, the computer won't even start..and none of my other pc's in the house use ddr...
 
My thoughts exactly, you stated that it crashes numerous times during the install of the Operating System... and in my past, that's exactly what it points to, is a memory issue. Go try mem-test.
 
Originally posted by Johnnylig
nope, the computer won't even start..and none of my other pc's in the house use ddr...
Click to expand...

Thought you said it would start just wouldn't install Windows properly? If you can actually get it started and past POST you're in luck because Memtest doesn't require an OS to be installed. Just turn on the computer with Memtest on a floppy and let it do its thing making several passes to see if the memory comes up with errors.
 
Ok, will do. What exactly does memtest do?

I'm assuming it just does a diagnosis of the memory, but what can I do from there?
 
Originally posted by Sole Conspirator
Thought you said it would start just wouldn't install Windows properly? If you can actually get it started and past POST you're in luck because Memtest doesn't require an OS to be installed. Just turn on the computer with Memtest on a floppy and let it do its thing making several passes to see if the memory comes up with errors.
Click to expand...

awesome :)

thank you
 
OK. This thing has been running about 90 hours total, and I don't know wtf to do. Someone said run it overnight, so I did that but it just kept going...?

How is this helping my computer at all?
MVC-385F.JPG
 
Wow only 8 errors? Well, it doesn't help or hurt your computer, think of it as a neutral program. The main point of the program is to see how many errors are with your stick of memory... computers I have worked on where I couldn't install the operating system, I've run memtest and even after 5 minutes I get 2000+ errors... Now, I don't know few errors are acceptable or what, I've only dealt with all or none... not 8 errors after 90 hours. :) Hmm, I don't even think that 8 errors would cause you the issues, not entirely certain about that though... only thing I can really suggest is try switching out the memory, replacing it in another stick, another slot, what have you.
 
just to clarify, that is a zero and not an eight. Zero errors and it's still at 100+ hours.

I just restarted the computer and it crashed -again-

what can I do now?
 
try a new powersupply

they are the cause of a lot of problems (if they dont supply sufficient current to the processor/HDD/video card, the voltage will drop and the system will crash).
 
Can someone please clarify that those in fact do at least look like 8's? I swear up and down they say 8, but I know it's at an odd angle with the camera. :) And yes, next is a new power supply... and then after that, maybe hard drive? *Shrug*
 
just remember ... in DOS ... a zero looks like an O with a line through it. So ... it kinda looks like an 8 with a bad camera.

but i knew they looked like zero's because the line is diagonal through the O ... :)
 
take out the a stick of memory of your computer and try installin the os with that stick. if it works then replace the memory like all the other people are sayin or jus donate your memory to her.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top