Wife's PC Died

MikePA · Dec 26, 2002

Wife\'s PC Died

I call it my wife's computer because she's the one that uses it the most. The kids have their own and I use my laptop.

Yesterday, with all the snow, the power went out a couple of times, just for a few seconds (we were lucky and did not lose it for hours as some did), but enough to knock the PC down. I have it behind a UPS, but that must have a dead battery. Nothing else connected to the UPS was affected.

It's a Gateway PC and it will display the 16.0 MB on the video card, then it displays the full screen Gateway logo and that's where it stops. Any ideas?

Right after the Gateway logo appeared (which I assume was generated by the BIOS), it would get a progress bar in the upper left hand corner. When the progress bar was completely filled, Windows2000 Pro would start booting.

My wife is not going to be happy /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif since she will not be able to play Mahjongg or get her email.

JohnMiller3 · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Well... at least it's still breathing... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Could be corrupt CMOS or W2K system...

Easy test... sub another HD to boot from to determine which direction you will go...

Try resetting CMOS by "clear" jumper and removing on-board battery for ~ 15 minutes...

Gots to bring the wife to work... Good luck... (lots of snow!) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

AndyR · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Try setting up a boot floppy from your laptop (or something with the same OS as the wife's PC) and boot her PC from that. This way you will have a chance to see if the HD is dead or just scrambled (and you don;t even have to crack the case).

MikePA · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Thanks for your replies, Andy and John. It wont boot from a floppy or CD. I've tried holding the Esc, F1, F4 and F8 keys while booting and nothing gets me into the CMOS. It looks like the CMOS is dead. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

RoyJackson · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

I've tried holding the Esc, F1, F4 and F8 keys while booting and nothing gets me into the CMOS. It looks like the CMOS is dead.

Normally, entering BIOS requires the F2 or Delete key. The "correct" key to use is probably hidden behind the Gateway logo screen. However, just for giggles, try the F2 or the DELETE, but not both simultaneously. Do this as soon as you see the logo screen.

Not sure going into BIOS will help you though. But, it is a possibility the BIOS may not be recognizing the hard drive.
If you get into the BIOS, you'll have to see what's there for the drive, if anything. Hopefully, the BIOS can autodetect the drive if it's not being recognized.

As mentioned by another poster, you can pull the battery or change the jumpers (if your board has jumpers) to clear the settings. If you don't have the mainboard manual, don't mess with the jumpers.

If you want to try pulling the battery, make sure you disconnect the PC power cable first.

Trev · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

If it were mine, I would remove all cards from the machine and see if it boots then. If so, add back one card at a time until you've found the one that took the hit (perhaps the modem.. if she has one.)

This is a common experience we have when there are power glitches.. and you'd be surprised how, if a card gets zapped, it can bring down the entire system.. to the point it won't boot at all.

It could also be one of the drives, even the floppy. Try disconnecting them and see what happens, if the card trick above doesn't help.

HTH,
Bob

p.s. Make sure you are grounded, by touching a metal part of the machine chassis, when playing with the cards, so you don't zap one with static electricity. Also, without any drives connected, you should at least get to the point where it says something like "Operating system not found; insert system disk." This would be further than you're getting now, and would be a good sign that you may have found the problem.

MossRoad · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

I had the same thing back in November. 3 short power outages over 3 days. Then the computer would do like you said. Start to boot, go check the video card, then nothing. Do what Trev suggests. Remove the cards and see if it boots. Also, if you have several memory sticks, try removing all but one and see. Unfortunately, mine turned out to be several capacitors on the mother board got blasted. And that was behind a surge protector power strip. Someone told me that the surge protectors on the power strips can only take so many surges, then they are no good.

I was pretty angry, as the motherboard had built in IDE RAID that I used for backups. The board is no longer made and it is getting harder to find socket 370 mother boards for P3's. I ended up with an Intel board that was only $79.00.

And, since I documented the power outages, the power company had records of when it occurred and found that a homeowner had dropped a tree on the lines and caused the initial outage and the subsequent outages were due to repair work. They had 5 other damage claims and told me to FAX them the bill for the new motherboard and they would cover it. We'll see what happens with that one /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

MikePA · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Thanks to all.../w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I tried the Del when I saw the logo, nothing. I powered off and on then tried the F2 key....Nada. I'm off to try pulling boards one at a time. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

Trev · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

I'm off to try pulling boards one at a time.

No, not one at a time.. all of them at once. If you have two bad cards, you'll never figure it out unless you remove them all and then add each one back and test. Kind of like skunks, these computers.. they do make scents.. sort of. ;-)

Bob

MikePA · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

An interesting development...

My PC, a tower, sits underneath a shelf so I have to pull it forward slightly to unhook all the cables. Before I unplugged the last two cables, the monitor and keyboard cables, I tried one last time to boot it. Guess what? It booted fine. /w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif

By process of elimination I've determined that if my USB hub is plugged into either of the on-board USB connectors, the PC will not boot, yet, if I plug the hub in after the system is up, Win2K recognizes it just fine.

I've had this PC for a couple of years and the following on-board ports/devices have gone bad;

1. Sound card - had to buy a separate PCI sound card.
2. One of the two serial ports. Since I switched to DSL, I don't need them, but still...
3. Now, the USB ports.

Without the USB ports, I do not have access to my scanner, CF/SM card reader and Palm docking port. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif So, I don't think I will cancel the order I placed earlier this morning for a new PC. /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif It was time to upgrade anyway.

WVBill · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Mike:
Have you tried leaving the USB hub plugged in without the scanner, CF/SM card reader and Palm docking port plugged into the hub?

Maybe it's one of the peripherals and not the USB port.

MikePA · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

WVBill, thanks for the idea, I will check that out.

Steven · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Have you tried to boot using the mode where you can watch each step and see were it stops and skip over that spot and see if it will continue to boot. I am not a computer wizard but do now how to get around, Not sure how to explain it step by step but maybe somebody else can. It's calle Startup step by step confirmation. and it is under starting in safe mode.

Gary_in_Indiana · Dec 26, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

I had a similar problem a couple years ago and starting testing cards and components one at a time in another machine. As one was replaced, the problem persisted so another was replaced. At a couple of points I had everything working only to have something else fail.

When all was done, I had the computer working fine. That was the good news. The bad news was that I had far more invested in that machine than a far better one would have cost me brand new. The greater irony was that that computer was given to me. It was by far the most expensive "free" computer ever.

Oh, well...live and learn. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

BTW, Dell has a Pentium IV, 1.8 Gig machine with a flat panel monitor (not flat screen, flat PANEL) for only $699. What a great belated Christmas present THAT would make for the wife. Besides, after that, how could she say no to any new implements then? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

MossRoad · Dec 27, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Is the USB hub a "powered hub ", that is, does it have its own wall wort(power supply) or does it get its power from the computer? In theory, USB is supposed to be able to run lots of devices. In reality, it probably won't. Do like Bill suggested and unplug everything except the hub and see if it works. Then plug one thing in at a time to see if all of the devices are good. If none of the devices are bad, you might just need to purchase a powered USB hub because the non powered hub is getting loaded down with too many devices.

MikePA · Dec 27, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Is the USB hub a "powered hub "...
Yes, it was a powered hub.

I plugged the scanner and the Palm docking station directly into the ports on the PC and it boots up fine. So, it looks like it was the hub that went bad. My new PC has 6 USB ports, 4 in the back, 2 in the front, so I shouldn't need a hub anymore.

WVBill · Dec 27, 2002

Re: Wife\'s PC Died

Mike:
Glad to see you narrowed it down to what was broken.

What kind of a PC did you get? I think the prices have finally fallen enough for me to consider upgrading my home PC.

Believe it or not, I currently have a P75 with one 40 Mb and one 20 Mb (yes, "Megabyte - not Gigabyte") hard dirves and 32MB RAM, running Windows 98. Fortunately, I can bring my laptop from work home whenever I want but if I forget to for some reason, about all I can do on my home PC is surf the internet.