NEWBIE.....NEEDS HELP

prettyslick

I'm new to the board and just want to say this website is great. I recently obtained my A+ cert with help from this site. Now, although I have my cert, I am relatively inexperienced, so any help would be appreciated. I did some work on co-workers computer this weeked, loading software and I put in a new CD-ROM. The computer ran great, no problems....but as I was bringing it out to put in my car (here's the bad part) ... I dropped the computer. I feel pretty stupid at this point. Now I've got problems.
No video from the system, it runs through the post (1 short beep) and runs what sound like the normal startup into windos then the hard drive stops, but the light is still on. Then the system repeadilty re-starts booting over again. I checked all cables, board and cards look fine. When I boot off a floppy it runs through the post normally once then the hard drive stops. I thinking it's a bad video card, but again, I'm pretty inexperienced. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Prettyslick

Special_k21

Interesting problem you have going there. I had a similar problem with the constant reboots a while back because I had VNC and PC Anywhere installed on the same machine. For some reason those 2 programs did not get along very well and it wiped out my video drivers. For some reason, it rebooted time and time again. I solved the problem by booting into safe mode and "updating video driver". After that, I uninstalled PC Anywhere and I was in good shape. You might want to try a new video card, and if not, maybe another hard drive?

bellboy

sounds like you need to get your hands on some spares. spares are great for swapping out to check components.

true, it's great to have two of everything, but normally you can get away with:

video cards (pci and agp)
memory (sdram, ddr and edo)
floppy drive
cd-rom
sound card
modem (pci and external)


you won't really be able to diagnose your problem until you get a replacement video card, but it sounds like your hard drive may be damaged.

prettyslick

I haven't collected many spare parts yet, but I do have a spare working
hard drive with an OS on it. I will swap the hard drives and also try the video card in another working computer. Thanks for the help. Hopefully I won't ever repeat this mistake.

carbunkle

all I can say is pull out parts and replace until it works. I would start with the video.

bellboy

don't worry. as you upgrade your computer, you will eventually build a collection of spares. ebay is great for it too.

prettyslick

The assumed bad video card is an AGP and I couldn't get another one to test but I did manage to get a PCI video card to test the system. The system works fine now. The hard drive is also fine. I think I'm pretty lucky I didn't do more damage. Can I assume that the video card is bad or is there a possibility that the slot is bad? Unfortunately I don't have another system with an AGP slot to test that card.

RussS

I would put money on the card being crook. I have seen a bad AGP slot or two, but most times the card is at fault.

When I was starting out I used to make friends with guys in repair shops and managed to get the occasional good part that was being thrown out after an upgrade - now have AGP, PCI and ISA graphics cards, PCI & ISA sound cards, PCI card and a box of other assorted components.

prettyslick

I'll bet on the card being bad also and order a new one for the AGP slot.
Thanks you all for your input