Insanity sets in........

jeffncris · 10-26-2005, 06:41 PM

My computer developed a rather peculiar problem recently: when booting, the screen remains black with the cursor blinking merrily away in the upper left corner. After numerous attempts to reboot and no success, I take it the shop. They can't figure it out either, and re-format the hard drive with all the nonsense that entails. Worked fine for about three days, then much to my delight happened again. Off to the shop again. They called later saying it was working perfectly, it booted just fine for them numerous times. They advise if it happens again, unplug the power cord, then plug it in again. This morning it happens AGAIN. I follow their advice with the power cord, and Presto! it works fine. My question is: What the h"#$ is causing this? Have any of you ever seen this before?? I'm gonna shoot this damn thing....

Thanks in advance,

jnc

Trizoy · 10-26-2005, 06:59 PM

PSU? Which one do you have?

**dragon2309** · 10-26-2005, 07:43 PM

Sounds like either mobo or BIOS playing about or the hard drive is on the blink, dont think its PSU related cos it turns on fine and sits there doing nothing, but its stilled powered up, so probably not power related.

Can we have some specs of this posessed PC please??

dragon2309

jeffncris · 10-27-2005, 07:19 AM

2.8 ghz, 512 mb ram, dual 80 gig HDD's, Win xp home edition, LG dual layer DVD rewriter....... just standard stuff really, the computer has been working fine for over a year and I haven't installed anything recently so this has got me puzzled..... I was thinking HDD problems?

Yeti · 10-27-2005, 03:45 PM

The hard drive is a definite possiblity - you'll get the cursor when there is nothing to boot from (or if you don't have the boot order set to include the HDD). I'm just confused on why removing the power cord would correct this.

**dragon2309** · 10-27-2005, 04:06 PM

Quote:

The hard drive is a definite possiblity - you'll get the cursor when there is nothing to boot from (or if you don't have the boot order set to include the HDD). I'm just confused on why removing the power cord would correct this.

Thats why i said dodgy BIOS, perhaps its corrupt, not recognising the Hard Drive or perhaps its just not communicating in the right way, to start of i would replace the motherboard, see if it works, then the hard drive and then the PSU. Is this a custom build or shop bought, if so, what shop?

Hairy_Lee · 10-27-2005, 04:11 PM

either way, if the shop says its fine they're not telling the truth.
the only way you should be able to turn a computer on is simply by pushing the power button, not unplugging it and plugging it back in and then turning it on.

jeffncris · 10-28-2005, 03:10 PM

Since I fear impending doom, I was thinking of cloning my existing HDD to the other HDD I have installed, but I'm not sure of how to do this. Is there an easy way? Do I need to format the second HDD first? Is there a freeware program to handle this, or is this a bad idea?

ivan4103 · 10-29-2005, 04:58 AM

its my usual problem in my customer due to their power cord is allways getting stuck with some thing heres the tip allways be sure that nothing can stand on the way of your power cord because of the plug might notbe connected properly on the terminals of your power suply if the problem persist even if you even replaced a power cord, buy a new power suply

timothyb89 · 10-29-2005, 07:11 AM

i think its very possible that it is a registry issue. The same thing happened to the computer I am using now. Make a boot disk (find the stuff at http://www.bootdisk.com, throw the things on a disk. Put the disk in the computer, and restart. Sooner or later, you will get to a prompt and type in "regscan /restore" and remember the space. You will get a list of early registry backups. Choose one from around the time the computer worked, and restart. It should now work

.

It's still possible that you are having a hard drive issue,
but this should help. It seems to me that the OS is booting, and
freezing at startup, which seems to be caused from a bad registry.
Don't exclude the fact that it *might* be power supply issue.
I have been experiencing that with Live Linux CDs on a laptop
where it just shuts down and leaves the screen powered on.

One last thing: If you have windows XP, at normal startup,
press F8 and open the advanced startup screen. You should
see an option for "Start with the last known good settings"
and you can select that. Hope you don't go insane.....

10-26-2005, 06:41 PM	#1 (permalink)
jeffncris New Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 6	Insanity sets in........ My computer developed a rather peculiar problem recently: when booting, the screen remains black with the cursor blinking merrily away in the upper left corner. After numerous attempts to reboot and no success, I take it the shop. They can't figure it out either, and re-format the hard drive with all the nonsense that entails. Worked fine for about three days, then much to my delight happened again. Off to the shop again. They called later saying it was working perfectly, it booted just fine for them numerous times. They advise if it happens again, unplug the power cord, then plug it in again. This morning it happens AGAIN. I follow their advice with the power cord, and Presto! it works fine. My question is: What the h"#$ is causing this? Have any of you ever seen this before?? I'm gonna shoot this damn thing.... Thanks in advance, jnc

10-26-2005, 07:43 PM	#3 (permalink)
dragon2309 P.I Dragon Join Date: May 2005 Location: KENT, UK Age: 19 Posts: 8,333	Sounds like either mobo or BIOS playing about or the hard drive is on the blink, dont think its PSU related cos it turns on fine and sits there doing nothing, but its stilled powered up, so probably not power related. Can we have some specs of this posessed PC please?? dragon2309 __________________ Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 3.1Ghz - (__CPU__) eVGA 680i SLi - (__MOB__) 4Gb Corsair Dominator DDR2-800 (4x1024Mb) - (__RAM__) 250Gb Western Digital SATAII 7200rpm - (__HDD__) nVidia BFG 8800GTS OC 320Mb - (__GFX__) LG DVD+/-RW 18x DVD-RAM - (__OPT__) Triple Boot - [XP Pro] + [Vista Ultimate] + [Ubuntu 7.10] - (__OS__) [3DMARK'03 :: 25,587] --- [3DMARK'05 :: 13,989] --- [3DMARK'06 :: 8791] - (__BENCHMARKS__) dragon2309.co.uk - a little slice of geek

10-27-2005, 04:11 PM	#7 (permalink)
Hairy_Lee VIP Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Plymouth, UK Age: 25 Posts: 2,553	either way, if the shop says its fine they're not telling the truth. the only way you should be able to turn a computer on is simply by pushing the power button, not unplugging it and plugging it back in and then turning it on. __________________ Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 EVGA nForce 650i Ultra mainboard EVGA 7950 GT KO SC 512Mb w/ Zalman VF-900Cu 2Gb of OCZ GOLD XTC SPECIAL OPS Eition Notebook - Acer Aspire 9300 - Turion TL-60/ 2 Gb RAM/ Geforce Go 7600 128 Dedicated (400 Mb turbocache)

10-29-2005, 07:11 AM	#10 (permalink)
timothyb89 Gold Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 357	i think its very possible that it is a registry issue. The same thing happened to the computer I am using now. Make a boot disk (find the stuff at http://www.bootdisk.com, throw the things on a disk. Put the disk in the computer, and restart. Sooner or later, you will get to a prompt and type in "regscan /restore" and remember the space. You will get a list of early registry backups. Choose one from around the time the computer worked, and restart. It should now work . It's still possible that you are having a hard drive issue, but this should help. It seems to me that the OS is booting, and freezing at startup, which seems to be caused from a bad registry. Don't exclude the fact that it might be power supply issue. I have been experiencing that with Live Linux CDs on a laptop where it just shuts down and leaves the screen powered on. One last thing: If you have windows XP, at normal startup, press F8 and open the advanced startup screen. You should see an option for "Start with the last known good settings" and you can select that. Hope you don't go insane..... __________________ And now that I'm running my life support equipment through Windows 95, I'll never have to worry about - beeeeeeeep... Registered Linux User #425668 Registered Linux Machine #333299

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10-26-2005, 06:59 PM	#2 (permalink)
Trizoy VIP Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Campbell, Ca Posts: 4,650	PSU? Which one do you have?

10-27-2005, 07:19 AM	#4 (permalink)
jeffncris New Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 6	2.8 ghz, 512 mb ram, dual 80 gig HDD's, Win xp home edition, LG dual layer DVD rewriter....... just standard stuff really, the computer has been working fine for over a year and I haven't installed anything recently so this has got me puzzled..... I was thinking HDD problems?

10-27-2005, 03:45 PM	#5 (permalink)
Yeti VIP Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 1,278	The hard drive is a definite possiblity - you'll get the cursor when there is nothing to boot from (or if you don't have the boot order set to include the HDD). I'm just confused on why removing the power cord would correct this.

10-28-2005, 03:10 PM	#8 (permalink)
jeffncris New Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 6	Since I fear impending doom, I was thinking of cloning my existing HDD to the other HDD I have installed, but I'm not sure of how to do this. Is there an easy way? Do I need to format the second HDD first? Is there a freeware program to handle this, or is this a bad idea?

10-29-2005, 04:58 AM	#9 (permalink)
ivan4103 New Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: imus cavite philippines Age: 20 Posts: 7	its my usual problem in my customer due to their power cord is allways getting stuck with some thing heres the tip allways be sure that nothing can stand on the way of your power cord because of the plug might notbe connected properly on the terminals of your power suply if the problem persist even if you even replaced a power cord, buy a new power suply