Hi guys, forum newbie here. I joined because im hoping you guys can help me with a tiny problem. By tiny I mean i have no idea whats up with my pc. Okay when I try to boot up my computer it takes me to the screen where it asks me If I want to start Windows Normally or in Safe Mode. If I click on Safe mode the PC freezes, If I try to start Windows Normally it acts as if it is starting up but then goes right back to that screen.
On my other PC when I try to boot it up, the fans start to spin but then stop and start by itself. It doesnt actually boot. FANS SPIN, FANS STOP, FANS SPIN, FANS STOP. No clue whats going on there. Ive made sure that none of the wires are loose. I need help.
If I cant get it to work, can I post here the computer parts I am planning on buying to start from scratch? I would like the opinion of you guys that build your own computers more often then I do. THX!
By your description there the first may be seeing a bad drive resulting in all options freezing on you. Trying a repair or full reinstall of Windows would be useless if the drive's write heads are gone. The second could be as serious as bad caps on the board or simply a need to replace the $3 lithium battery on it especially with an older system. A simple problem overlooked too often can be traced to a dumb $3 battery you get at "Rat Shack" or at the watch/calulator section of a deptment store like Walmart.
That's what they are for. The more recent as well as new boards seen in the last few years rely on those while some old boards saw either a vinyl covered holder with a thin cable going out to the board and a retaining clip at the other end or used a capacitor to maintain the information being stored.
The cap method was mainly seen on server type boards since those are often even then in use 24/7. The typical desktop board that sees so many hours and is then turned off would lose a charg stored in cap too fast to be used at this time. The solution was later found in using a standard commonly available type battery for maintaining the cmos.
But this would be a cheap low cost idea to simply try there before looking at the possible need to replace something like the drive itself. I had an old case here where the board apparently loved to eat batteries. I recently found that the cpu that was thought to be done for was actually back to running like new again since a weak battery wouldn't allow the 200mhz fsb setting while running a 2.2ghz XP3200+ as an XP2500+ 1.8ghz model at the 166mhz setting.
The system wouldn't do anything at the 200 setting following seeing the cpu get hot reaching max temp rated when a cpu cooler's fan quick without warning. For that build and the problem with the first case you are seeing problems with a fresh battery possibly having the need there. Having seen quite a few strange things with various older systems that would one quick test there to see if that's all it was.
After you do what was suggested and if it does not help then most likely your master boot record is corrupt. Put in your windows disk and do a repair. Not a install, but a repair.
Some general information on each system would probably be more help. Most newer boards will see a red and green led light that will show if the power is available for running the system while older boards lacked this. If you see green you are set to go unless a supply has a bad cap and the demands at post are too large to handle where everything bogs right down.
When the board in a new build quit in a short time you would see fans and lights for about 2-3 seonds and then nothing as the board switched itself off immediately. The most likely seen there was bad caps which is a far more common problem while not ruling out another problem like a defective bios eprom.
(That however may be from having seen the auto setting rather then 800 see 800mhz on the post screen while the replacment board requires setting that to 800 for DDR2 800 memory along with the timings.)
