Member Avatar for blond

hey ... can anyone help me?
my boyfriend and i both have ibm netvistas.. recently i started having a problem with mine .... the bedreaded ..... xp wont load and monitor goes into sleep mode......
i would unplug it from the wall for a few then it would maybe work.... the other day i had it so i did a system restore .. back a couple months .. now it seems to be ok ... and then it happened...... yesterday my boyfriends pc ..... was on all day it was hot as hell in the house ... i touched the mouse and the pc was on but it froze up immediately.... so we rebooted it then it came on and would freeze at the desktop... and the monitor kept blinking to black screen.. so we rebooted it i went into safe mode .. did a system restore ....... and didnt change anything actually well made it worse cause now we just have a blue screen .... LOL... so i told Him its burning up unplug it ... now it wont come back we get NO SIGNAL ....and when i boot it up only the top light comes on and the bottom light ... does something for like one sec then no activity..... i dont know where to begin .. any ideas and please dont beat me up im trying my best to figure out what the problem is and where to start

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Frank Wallis

Dani AI

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Below is a short, ordered troubleshooting checklist that builds on suggestions from and and focuses on quick isolation tests you can do at home before buying parts or paying for service. Work top-to-bottom and stop when the machine shows signs of life.

  • Swap the display and cable with a known-good monitor/cable (or connect this monitor to another PC). Check VGA/DVI connector pins for damage.
  • Look for basic POST indicators: fans spinning, drive activity LEDs, keyboard lights and any beep codes. If the board has no speaker, temporarily connect a PC speaker to the motherboard header to hear BIOS beeps; note any pattern.
  • Minimal-hardware boot: remove all nonessential cards and drives. Leave only motherboard, CPU + cooler, one RAM stick (try each stick/slot), PSU and video (onboard or card). Power on and see if BIOS/POST appears.
  • Reseat power connectors (20/24-pin ATX and CPU 4/8-pin). Try a known-good PSU if available; swapping the PSU is one of the fastest ways to rule it out.
  • Visually inspect motherboard and PSU caps for bulging, brown crust or leakage and smell for burnt components. Failed electrolytics are a common failure mode on older systems (see capacitor issues).
  • Reset CMOS (remove the coin cell for a few minutes or use the clear-jumper) to rule out corrupted BIOS settings.
  • Confirm CPU cooling: heatsink tight, fan spins and thermal paste contact is OK. Overheating can cause immediate hangs under load.
  • If the board still gives no POST, salvage the hard drive for data by connecting it to another PC or using a USB-to-SATA/IDE adapter before deciding on replacement hardware.

If any step produces a beep code or an identifying message, note it and look up the specific BIOS code. If you are not comfortable working inside the case, a local repair shop can do the same isolation steps and provide cost estimates versus buying a replacement. References: Power-on self-test (POST) and capacitor failure background: Power-on self-test Capacitor plague.

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Member Avatar for HoustonIT

If the monitor displays No Signal after powering on the system, then the cable is disconnected, or the computer is not even posting. Since you mentioned the heat, I would think that the system fatally overheated. If the lights come on, your power supply is probably OK, but your motherboard, CPU, or both are toast. Since it is a brand name system, a replacement motherboard will probably be proprietary, which means $$$. If the system is a few years old, this would be a good time to upgrade.

Member Avatar for Frank Wallis

Blond,

The over heating of your computer system,
must have caused the problem and this is why your WinXP Computer is not booting.

System restore will not help, and if you
were successfully able to boot your computer in safe mode than it indicates that
its a hardware issue.

Please tell us where your computer actually hangs? Does it hang during the WinXP welcome screen or does it hang after the WinXP welcome screen is done?

Unplug any ethernet cable connected to your computer and than do this work

I hope my question is clear.

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