[chrismorris730]

One day about a month and a half or so ago my dad's secondary machine died. Since it was built at around the same time my machine was i decided to take some of the parts from it, and i took a 512 MB stick of RAM from it, upgrading my computer to 1 GB. about a week after i stuck it in there, i was surfing the net (myspace, facebook, newegg, AIM) and i clicked on a link in myspace to go to a band that i like's website. for some odd reason firefox hung for a second or so and then my entire computer locked up. Since my case doesn't have the best ventilation and the build itself is 4 years old i thought nothing of it and after a few attempts to Ctrl+Alt+Del i just hit the restart button. It did it's normal startup routine going through the BIOS and everything but it hung when the XP loading screen should have come up. I restarted again and this time (after numerous times of it trying) it came up to my windows login screen. i logged in and recieved this lovely notice saying that my system had recovered from a serious error and that I had 3 days to activate windows again before i would be unable to use my system. Since my uncle built my computer for me i contacted him about the problem, but since his job requires him to work late he didn't get back to me until like a week later. I activated windows over the phone (Which was a pain...) and i logged in. thinking i was all good, to my surprise my background was all windows classic, my hardware manager wouldn't recognize anything and i couldn't get any sound. I wasn't sure what happened but another 3 days went by and soon i couldn't even get my computer to post, it just beeped. since this is exactly what happened to my dad's build, I took out the RAM and tried again (my best guess is that the RAM was somehow corrupted...). Still nothing. For about the past three weeks or so my computer has just been sitting there, a large paperweight. I've been working on buying another machine, and since it would be my first build i figured i should know how to assemble one. So i took my machine completely apart (down to bare bones and individual parts), and on a whim decided to put it back together and try to start it. this time it posted and stated that there was a CMOS error and that the settings would be set to default. This raised my spirits some because it meant it was actually sort of working. i hit F1 to continue and then it came to the screen that asked me how i wanted to start windows (safe mode, safe + drivers, safe+ command prompt, normal etc.) and i hit enter on last known good config.

This is where i am stuck. My computer at this point tries to start windows but hangs right before where the XP screen should be. It then just sits there, fans spinning and no activity from the drives. if i try to reset it, it doesn't get as far, and if i power it all the way down and up then it gets to the same place.

my computer specs:
AMD Athlon 2400+
512 MB RAM
80 GB Maxtor HDD
DVD ROM drive
CD-RW drive
ATI 9600 RADEON SE
Integrated sound

My questions:
1. What the heck happened to it in the first place? (Best guesses)
2. How do i get it to run XP?
3. When it does, how do i get my hardware to show up again?


My uncle told me to replace my mobo battery when all it would do was beep and i did...this was a week ago and when i reassembled my computer it started working again (halfway.)

Sorry for the HUGE story but i figured it would help to get all the details from the beginning of my problem. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[link590o]

to me this could be the hard drive, or the motherboard. have you checked your hard drive?

it might do you a great service to perform a chkdisk if possible. or if not, take the hard drive out and try either a new one, or one that you know works for sure and try reinstalling windows on it.

it may also just be that your motherboard is crapping out. i think that might best explain why nothing was recognized in your task manager.

those are the suspects i have in my mind. you've already taken out the ram and eliminated that as the problem. now double check the hard drive. and if that doesn't fix it, it might be the motherboard failing.

i'm not sure what else to try based off of the symptoms. to be honest i've never seen a problem quite like this one before. 10 points for the uniqueness :P

[chrismorris730]

see that's the other thing....three years ago i moved to nebraska from germany and i haven't seen my XP disk since...i'm pretty sure i lost it in the move.

I'm assuming that chkdisk can be run from the BIOS? if it can i'll have to take the MoBo battery out again so it things the CMOS has been changed...

I forgot to mention that my MoBo is an ECS motherboard...not sure of the model or anything as my uncle did not send any of the boxes for the hard ware when he shipped it to germany. (do i get any more points for uniqueness? :P)

i figured that it was on it's way out....that's why i started wish-listing all the stuff on newegg. :D

[link590o]

o.O no windows install disc?...that makes things infinitely more difficult. i think you could have run a chkdisc if you had the cd. so you could boot up the repair console.

i'm out of ideas mate. if you had the disc, that would make troubleshooting things a cinch. but since you don't, i don't know where to go from here except to suggest a new compy in the end.

[chrismorris730]

i am going to do that....i'm actually buying a set of parts for a complete build and then another set of lesser performance parts to use the case and optical drives with...since they are still perfectly useable

[link590o]

you wanna suggest your parts to me? i just finished doing a build of my own. if you wish, you could even suggest a budget and i can try to find you the best parts for the money :). for the 9 months i spent doing this forum business, i learned all about building comps. i guess that makes me somewhat of an expert ^_^

[chrismorris730]

lol i didn't even read this ^^^ post before i went and i just posted all my proposed stuff


:D great minds think alike


thanks for your help, and thanks in advance for help on the new build :p