PC wont boot up... Here's the situation

[jdmeg21]

Last night I was online, on a forum and was writing a reply to someone... Well As I clicked their icon to reply....

1. My keyboard locked up. ( I figured nothing big, its viewsonic and it does it every once in a while)
2. During this time my mouse still works and I still have video..
3. So I close all the internet pages restart my pc...
THEN
4. During start up I notice my monitor went into power save mode. ( no video coming in.)
5. Then I'm like WTF.... I notice the PC isn't going through the boot process. because its sitting trying to start up the CD drive.
6. So now the CD drive lights flash, the PC power light is on then flashes, and the reset light flashes...
7. NO video, no nothing.....

oh yeah

I'm running Microsoft XP, board is AMD 64 3500+
I just added a new 300GB harddrive on Friday but its been working fine till last night, haven't added any new software...

And if it is the board, do I have to reload Xp and everything that was on my harddrive... if I use the same model board and cpu

[chrisbliss18]

Did you try starting it up again after turning it off (by holding down the power button for about three seconds, unplugging it, or turning the power supply off with the switch that's on it) and leaving it alone for a few minutes? If you haven't, turn the switch on the power supply to the off position, leave the machine alone for a few minutes, turn the switch back on, and try to start the machine up.

If the machine refuses to turn on, what sounds do you hear it making? Do the fans run? Do the lights flash? Do you hear any beeps? Do you hear the drives being accessed?

[jdmeg21]

Did you try starting it up again after turning it off (by holding down the power button for about three seconds, unplugging it, or turning the power supply off with the switch that's on it) and leaving it alone for a few minutes? If you haven't, turn the switch on the power supply to the off position, leave the machine alone for a few minutes, turn the switch back on, and try to start the machine up.

If the machine refuses to turn on, what sounds do you hear it making? Do the fans run? Do the lights flash? Do you hear any beeps? Do you hear the drives being accessed?

I was trying a bunch of stuff last night.
These are on
1. fan on board
2. fan on case
3. lights on CD Drive (flashing)
4. light on case (PC power light) ( stays on then Flashes about every 20 - 30 seconds)
5. light on case (PC reset button light) ( stays on then flashes after PC power light)
6. No beeps or sounds from boot up
7. hard drives sound like they are spinning from power on, but nothing else.

What I've done..
1. unplugged power cord, left off over night, plugged back in same thing.
2. disconnected CD drive and put boot floppy in A:\.... (Floppy is not being accessed or turned on.) (worked before this happened)
3. disconnected On hard drive at a time( I have two 80gb and 300 gb) I would leave one in and one out and tried to boot, didn't work.
4. Disconnected both and tried to boot up cpu and board, nothing.
5. disconnected all drives floppy, cd, both hard drives and my 512 ddr ram I add... still no boot on screen

Throughout this whole process my screen has not been getting video. So I plugged in a different monitor, same thing, no video is being sent out and monitor goes to power save mood. also I dont get any lights on my keyboard. Usually the num lock, caps lock and one more would light up during boot up process. NOTHING.... I'm ready to take an axe to it :mad: :twisted: . Please help.

[chrisbliss18]

Do you have to login to Windows or does it automatically log you in?

If it automatically logs you in, if you wait for it to load all the way, do you hear the Windows startup sound?

[kleinbaas]

There are a number of reasons your PC might not boot (Viruses, Missing/Corrupt Files, Bad Sectors/Damaged Hard Drive etc) but what I would do 1st of all is check if your PC will boot from a Bootable CD (the PC does not boot from the Hard Drive - just from the CD! and you can run programs from the CD to change passwords, scan for viruses, check and fix the hard drive, recover files, etc).
You may then be able to fix the problem (using the tools included) or at least determine if it is a hardware or software fault (if the PC boots from CD it must be Windows or the Hard Drive that is corrupt, if it wont boot from a bootable CD its probably another hardware fault. i.e. Motherboard / Memory)
You can get a Bootable PC Repair CD or a Bootable Bart Disk at
click here: or here:
Hope this helps!