Member Panel

I left my computer on while GetRight was downloading some files, and when I came back, the screen was frozen. After holding the power switch to turn it off and then back on again, I just got a blank screen; the system wouldn't even POST. The DVD drive just kept clicking and accessing (If I would try to open the drive, it came out a tiny bit before going right back in). I opened up my case and checked all the connections and everything was okay. There was no change for the next several attempts. As a last ditch effort, I removed the motherboard battery for a while and then reinstalled it and it actually booted. My memory and hard drives were detected and whatnot, but when I was tinkering in the BIOS settings, my machine froze again, just like how it froze the first time. I removed the battery and waited again... this time I skipped the settings and went straight forward to loading Windows XP, but this time, it froze just before the OS loaded. The battery method only works occasionally to get the system to boot.

I'm out of ideas and I was wondering if this situation sounded familiar before I have to start tearing the guts out of my main system.

Any help at all would be tremendously appreciated.

This is my system:
Windows XP Pro
A Gigabyte K8NS-Pro NForce 3 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1 Gig of PC-3200 DDR-400 RAM
ATI 9800SE 128MB Video card
80 & 300 Gig Seagate SATA Hard Drives

1. You might have set the BIOS to a bad setting.

2. Put the XP Installation CD into the CD Drive (if you can) and bootup off the CD.
When the option to Repair due to Startup problems, select that option. *** Do NOT reinstall Windows.

Thanks for responding, wabeard.

1. I haven't touched my BIOS settings in at least a couple of years and when I entered them after I got the system to boot, it froze just in the general settings before any changes could be saved to the now default settings.

2. I can't get the system to even POST now, so I'm still having the DVD issues, making the XP CD method impossible. (I tried though...that was the fastest I've ever put a CD into a drive). The DVD drive just keeps clicking and accessing like it's starting the loading process over and over again.

This is quite odd, is it not?

Try to boot up on the Safe Mode.
To do that, press and hold down the F8 key as the computer is booting up.
If that works, shutdown and reboot.

I started the task of removing each individual component to see if it was the culprit, and thank the maker, the first one I tried was it. My video card was the thing that was giving me grief. I removed it, booted, and then replaced it, and now everything is fine.

Wabeard, I would like to extend my thanks to you for sticking with me and replying with ideas.

Well that's a good thing,

I'm going to mark this as resolved.

Good going and welcome to the PCHF!

Thanks for the thanks. We are here to help those who want the help. The custom here, if you appreciate the assistance, is either make a donation or click on the Thanks button at the bottom of the message.

Your welcome to come back any time. Maybe you can help someone else or maybe learn something new. We have some pretty sharp fellows working this range.

Later...