Computer wont boot

Dan Punch · #1 Jul 12, 2005, 04:07 AM

I have recently been building a new system and finally purchased the cpu a few days ago. at first when i put everything together and booted it up all i got was a blank screen and the hard drive light constantly on aswell as all fans spinning. so i took out the lithium battery to reset cmos and it booted up fine. however when i came to install windows i was getting several error messages, some saying Driver_irql_not_or_less_or_equal and some saying this program has performed an illegal operation and will close. Eventually i managed to get an operating system installed and it worked fine up untill yesterday when i left on the computer for around 1 hour. when i came back i noticed there was no signal to the monitor and when i restarted i got nothing just blank screen and fans spinning. can anyone help me?
any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks
Daniel

Press2Esc · Jul 12, 2005, 02:19 PM

What is your OS? Try boot'n in safe mode and check your display settings. Also, I would look for homeless hardware in the Device Managers "Other Device" folder.

Good Luck.

P2E

Dan Punch · Jul 12, 2005, 02:25 PM

my operating system that is currently installed is windows 98 and there is no way to enter anything on the computer as there is no signal to the monitor and the only thing i am able to do on the system is to turn the power off
thanks for the help anyway

Daniel

Press2Esc · Jul 12, 2005, 03:10 PM

Very important - any beeps at boot time? If so, post your results. For grins, try pressing F8 while booting up. If nothing try the F1 key. If nothing try the ESC key. Finally, try the DEL key - during bootup.

Also, you will need to determine if you have a faulty video monitor or display controller.... If you can, obtain grab a run of the mill (basic, generic) display controller card a/o monitor to determine what which one of the 2 is not working.

Depending on yoiur locale & interest, I can send/sell you a display controller a/o monitor. Alternately, you shoudl consider contacting the technical support folks where your bought the suspect hardware...

Good Luck

P2E.

Dan Punch · Jul 13, 2005, 01:16 AM

when the system starts up there are no beeps what so ever, even when there is no ram inserted i still get no error messages. I have already tried another graphics card in the AGP slot but still got the same outcome, ive even tried re wiring the system just to make sure no leads were reversed or anything stupid but it still doesnt work

thanks again for your help
Daniel

Press2Esc · Jul 13, 2005, 03:02 AM

Where applicable, I suggest you remove all extra peripheral hardware, such as modem, opt video card, sound card, NIC, FDD, CD/DVD, extra SRAM, etc. This will check to see if anything is loading down the bus. Reconnect the FDD a/o CD ribbon and try to boot from floopy, CD, ERD from any OS/system - this will check out your drives. When you 1st boot-up, hold any keys down on the keyboard to check your BIOS.

Of couse, make sure you are ground straped to the chasis. Verifiy all cable connections are fully seated and properly installed (pin1, red strip), check power supply fuse(s) - check motherboard LEDs a/o measure power supply voltages (+5, -5, 12V). Check all fans.

P2E

Dan Punch · Jul 13, 2005, 03:27 AM

I have tried removing all drives inc hdd and still nothing, i will try the power supply and all else i can think of

thnx for the help
Daniel

Dan Punch · Jul 13, 2005, 04:45 AM

I have removed all disc drives again aswell as g-card and still no response all 3 lights on the keyboard light up but pressing the keys does nothing. when the power button is pressed and the fans begin to spin after a while the heat sink of the cpu becomes slightly warm and increasing slightly the more you leave it on. I have been told this is a good sign as it shows that the cpu is working and is trying to process information. I dont know if this is true but i hope it is as this narrows my list down to a few things. but as of now the system is stil useless and still the only thing i can do is turn it on and off
thanks again
Daniel

LTheobald · Jul 13, 2005, 04:52 AM

From the sounds of it, the PSU is probably what's causing the problem. Hopefully it was just a bad PSU. It's a little wierd that it worked, then didn't, then worked some more, then didn't. Power supplies tend to either work or not. At first I was thinking that maybe something got wired up wrong but I couldn't think of any backwards wiring that would cause this trouble. Anyway, you said you rewired the system so that's that covered.

Hope you saved all the reciepts etc. because you should get a refund if what was sold to you was faulty.

Dan Punch · Jul 13, 2005, 06:11 AM

I am currently only running a 280w psu, could that be the problem, the psu is struggling with the system
thanks 4 the help
Daniel



At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you will be able to: Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+ topics. Accept money for answers that you provide. Communicate privately with other members (PM). See fewer ads. Sign Up!