Boot up issues

[Duds]

Hi guys.
I have a small problem when booting up my pc. When powering it on it does the normal single beep and continues to bring up the various screens until it gets to the windows xp screen where id either flashes the windows xp screen up before the monitor goes to sleep or the monitor just goes to sleep and reboots. I checked the memory and even tried some other memory i have but it does tehsame thing. I have been into the bios settings and changed the FSB speed but that did nothing to help. I have also removed and replaced the graphics card. I cant think of anything else at the moment.

Any suggestions or hints?

Many thx

Duds

[mr0mega]

Try hitting F8 before the loading screen is shown and choose safe mode. Then do the usual chkdsk and driver re installation.

[Duds]

Will give it a go tonight. I think i tried all of the options i.e safe mode, start up with networking, dos etc and i think the same thing happend but ill double check.

Thx mromega

[Duds]

Forgot to add, i had recently put in a different cpu onto the mother board and new memory if that makes a difference.

Cheers

Duds

[Hunain]

umm, new CPU and memory, you say you have tried other memory and the problem still occurs, and you have taken out your graphics card too? How about you take out the graphics card and plug your monitor into the built-in display and see if that works?

[Duds]

Ill give that a try as well thx hunain

Duds

[Duds]

Hello,

Had another go last night at fixing this damn pc but things have changed slightly. I unplugged all hardware not needed on boot up such as the NIC. all but 1no memory stick, all hard drives except the bootable one, dvd rom and cd rom. Booted the pc and it gave the usual single beep and ran through the normal black screens with ur system info on. Got to a screen saying it wasnt shut down properly last time so do i want to safe boot or start normally etc, selected start windows normally and the screen went blank, flashed up the BSOD and rebooted doing all the same thing again. Tried going into safe mode but the same thing happend. Havent tried pressing F8 as yet as i forgot last night but will try again tonight.

I have tried booting form a second HDD but the same thing happens.

I tried doing a windows repair from the xp disk but it asks for the administrators password and yes u guessed it...i have forgotten it.

The system is made up of old bits and pieces so bound to have problems, here is what i have:

CPU - AMD Athlon 2600+ - will find the model etc tonight. This cpu has worked on this mother board before.
Mother board - Nvidia nForce2 400/Ultra 400 + MCP (Socket A)
Memory - 1GB DDR 333 (Pc2700U) unbuffered DIMM ( I have other memory sticks to try)
GFX card - Radeon 9600SE 128m DDR
Hard drives - 1no 20GB with no OS on, 1no 80GB with xp on and 1no 40GB with xp on (boot drive). Will post the makes etc later.
Service pack 2 installed on the hard drive being used.

There doesnt seem to be any on board graphics capability with this mother board.
I have taken out the memory, hard drives, floppy, power cables, gfx card, NIC card and replaced them all but nothing has changed.

I know ur all thinking... OMG how old is this stuff lol but i just wanted to get it running as i prefer using a pc to a lappy.

If this isnt enough info let me know

Duds

[strike-down]

Had the same problem on my dads laptop about 2 months ago, and the only way tht it was sorted was a fresh install of XP as there wasnt anyway of booting the computer, even in safemode. Safemode just gave me a black screen. Im afraid that might be your only option

[Duds]

Its certainly looking that way Strike-down. Luckily ive had to do it a few times recently on another machine so it shouldnt be to much of a problem. just a shame as i cant back it all up atm. Will be losing loads of pics etc but its not a massive loss. Actually saying that i could just wipe the other HDD and do a re-install and use that as the main one then attached the HDD with my pics etc on as a slave?

Im guessing if the re-instal doesnt fix the problem then something is totally broken lol? New mother board time?

Duds

[strike-down]

Wiping the HDD that doesnt have the pics on would make sense unless you can put that hdd into a different machine as a slave and back the pics up onto the other computer
And the XP install should fix it as it seems like a driver issue

[Duds]

Thats what i shall do then

I have got another machine but that also has boot up issues since i installed new memory and a new cpu. Thats my next project to work on lol. That one just makes a continous alarm sound so god knows what thats all about. Im guessing it doesnt like the memory but we shall see.

I had the new cpu and memory working on a different mother board but it only registered the cpu speed at 1.5ghz when it was a 3.0 ghz cpu. So rather than try and fix it i installed the cpu and memory onto a different MB and now this alarm has started lol. Im not having much luck.

Duds

[mycarsavw]

Erm, before you get medieval on it, boot into safe mode, update the GPU drivers and reboot normally

[Duds]

Hi Mycarsavw,

do u mean for my initial boot problem or for the second system which has an annoying alarm going off?

For the initial system i cant seem to get into safe mode, it just reboots as soon as i click safe mode unless im doing something wrong. I dont know as much as i would like to about fixing these pc's

Is there any other way of getting into safe mode?

Duds

[mycarsavw]

Sorry, I meant the initial problem

To use a Safe Boot option, follow these steps:

1. Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press the F8 key when the Boot Menu appears.
2. Select an option when the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, and then press ENTER.
3. When the Boot menu appears again, and the words "Safe Mode" appear in blue at the bottom, select the installation that you want to start, and then press ENTER.

You shouldn't have to click anything, it should all be in a DOS-like environment.

The second issue, the long continuous alarm could be down to something as simple as you forgetting to plug the CPU fan back in again.

[strike-down]

Sorry, I meant the initial problem



You shouldn't have to click anything, it should all be in a DOS-like environment.

The second issue, the long continuous alarm could be down to something as simple as you forgetting to plug the CPU fan back in again.

As I said earlier, if the computer just reboots if you select safe mode, their are critical drivers that are failing to load correctly (and creating the dos equivelent of a BSOD, ie black screen then reboot)
And when duds said 'clicks' i think he means the option on the boot menu.

EDIT: in your mobo's manual, does it give any indication as to what the beeps mean?

[Duds]

Mycarsavw,

Thanks for that matey ill give it a go later.

As for the second pc problem i guess i need to unplug and plug everything back in again before i do anything else just incase it is a loose connection or something? I have a horrible feeling the new cpu is to good for the old mother board its sat in so ill probably end up buying a new MB anyway. Ill have to check compatibility first.

Duds