Dukat
Resident Freddy
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2004
- Messages
- 5,396
Hi all
Got a bit of a mystery here.
My brother got a PC for christmas, I looked over the specs for it and they seemed ok. I got it and checked it over for my parents before my brother got it and it seemed fine. I put a few games on there etc and got it ready for him.
All was well (apparently) and I never saw the pc again, untill now. Apparently it blue screened whilst playing red alert and now it wont load windows.
I've got it here now, I turn it on and bios is accessible, you go past the first two diagnostic screens, to where it would say "press any key to boot from CD", but straight after that the screen goes blank and the computer seems to freeze.
At first I thought it might be loading but not outputting any display to the monitor. I've tried two monitors, no difference at all. Two different gfx cards (radeon 9550 was the original, tried it with onboard and with an old radeon 9200SE which works fine in another computer) and get the same result.
I looked inside, all the IDE and power cables seem to be in order. I'm more of a software speciailist though so hardware isnt something I know a huge amount about. It could be that there is something wrong that I cant see.
I've tried putting a legit windows CD in to try to boot from that. I press any key to boot from CD at the prompt, then it says "checking computer configuration" as if it was going to load the windows CD installer menu, but instead the screen goes blank and I get the same as if I'd not booted from CD.
I've cleaned out the heatsync - plus there isnt any beeping when I start the computer, so I dont think it is an overheat issue.
When I asked my brother what he'd done with it, he said that the only things that had changed recently was that he'd started using a USB wireless stub to connect to a router(and the internet) downstairs, This being installed one/two days before this problem occured. Red alert had been installed for ages apparently, so it shouldnt be that causing a problem should it?
The specs for the computer are as follows:
3.2ghz Pentium
512 DDR ram
ATI radeon 9550 (256MB)
It was running windows XP.
Can anyone suggest what might be causing this? I've tried twiddling a few bios settings and come up blank. Really cant think what could be causing this at all.
Any help much appreciated.
Got a bit of a mystery here.
My brother got a PC for christmas, I looked over the specs for it and they seemed ok. I got it and checked it over for my parents before my brother got it and it seemed fine. I put a few games on there etc and got it ready for him.
All was well (apparently) and I never saw the pc again, untill now. Apparently it blue screened whilst playing red alert and now it wont load windows.
I've got it here now, I turn it on and bios is accessible, you go past the first two diagnostic screens, to where it would say "press any key to boot from CD", but straight after that the screen goes blank and the computer seems to freeze.
At first I thought it might be loading but not outputting any display to the monitor. I've tried two monitors, no difference at all. Two different gfx cards (radeon 9550 was the original, tried it with onboard and with an old radeon 9200SE which works fine in another computer) and get the same result.
I looked inside, all the IDE and power cables seem to be in order. I'm more of a software speciailist though so hardware isnt something I know a huge amount about. It could be that there is something wrong that I cant see.
I've tried putting a legit windows CD in to try to boot from that. I press any key to boot from CD at the prompt, then it says "checking computer configuration" as if it was going to load the windows CD installer menu, but instead the screen goes blank and I get the same as if I'd not booted from CD.
I've cleaned out the heatsync - plus there isnt any beeping when I start the computer, so I dont think it is an overheat issue.
When I asked my brother what he'd done with it, he said that the only things that had changed recently was that he'd started using a USB wireless stub to connect to a router(and the internet) downstairs, This being installed one/two days before this problem occured. Red alert had been installed for ages apparently, so it shouldnt be that causing a problem should it?
The specs for the computer are as follows:
3.2ghz Pentium
512 DDR ram
ATI radeon 9550 (256MB)
It was running windows XP.
Can anyone suggest what might be causing this? I've tried twiddling a few bios settings and come up blank. Really cant think what could be causing this at all.
Any help much appreciated.
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