Korean Job Discussion Forums

[twg]

Yay! I'm at a PC 방!

I've had trouble with my PC for a while now. A while back my computer's hard drive light would turn on, and the drive would spin out of control until I turned it off. I took that drive out, and everything seemed good again.

But over the last month or two, strange things began to happen.

For example, and this stuck in my mind considering how frequently I use it: My wacom tablet would alert me that the drivers werent running. I updated the drivers and that seemed to have fixed that problem. But then the computer would occasionally crash. No spinning hard drive, just total freeze. And quite often iTunes wouldnt crash upon exiting... oh! And Firefox would stop running.

Things would usually be find after a reboot. I tried looking at the event logs and it'd tell me that the computer had stopped working. Sadly, I didnt write the notice down, but it had something to do with the 1% needing the 2% because 3% was out on a date or something...

Anyway, tonight I was recording myself practicing guitar, when the computer froze dead again.

Hitting reset got me nothing but a black screen.

I powered off and turned it back on again. I got the name of the video card and then a black screen.

Reboot, I got past the memory test (before the devices turned on) when I got the following notice:

[Wrench]

Sounds like hardware failure.. If the computer beeps when you push the power then its your vid card if there is no beep its your mobo. Or your PSU most likely mobo.

[Demophobe]

Try flashing the BIOS or try booting in safe mode with command prompt. If you boot using prompt mode, the system will show you all the driver its loading and will freeze when it hits the offending device/driver. Write that down and post it back here.

I have a few questions as well. You say you "took the drive out". What does this mean? You removed the hard drive and it booted fine?

What exactly are your system specs? Windows XP? Motherboard make model? Peripheral components?

You say you updated the drivers for your tablet...from the Wacom site? No issues during installation? I'm unsure how those tablets work...are they just a USB line in? Does your motherboard have USB posts or do you need a PCI card?

Anyhow, the error message you wrote in your post is telling of a conflict between hardware and the BIOS. One of them needs to be updated or changed.

What PCI cards do you have in your computer? Sound? USB card? Firewire?

Fixing the problem is going to take time and patience, and access to a couple of other parts, if you can.

Start by removing PCI cards. Take one out, try to boot. If still nothing, take another one out, try to boot. If you have no PCI cards, try a different PSU.

Summary (my post is rambling):

Safe mode boot with command prompt. What happens, if anything.

Do you have a floppy drive installed? If yes, go to a PC room and download the latest BIOS for your mainboard. Read the BIOS flash procedure careful (you can't flash from inside Windows; doing it from a floppy is a bit more difficult). The BIOS flash procedure should be explained on the mainboard maker's site.

If that doesn't work or your BIOS is up to date, Try removing devices one at a time. Be careful here and make sure the computer has no power going to it, depress the power switch after unplugging it (to discharge remaining power within the system) and be well grounded before going inside the PC.

If none of this works, try a new power supply. (PSU) Cheap and available everywhere.

Still nothing? New mainboard.

Past this, I cannot think right now...still on the first cup of coffee here....

[twg]

Okay, I unplugged everything that wasn't nessecary and booted 'er up. The first time it told me there was no keyboard, but after a reboot, everying is fine. It got stuck for a bit on the Windows loading screen, but finallly chugged through.

I don't know if this is related or not, but Firefox crashes everytime I try to type with it. So I had to open Internet Explorer which is what I'm using now.

[twg]

[Demophobe]

Well, there is a discrepancy between your mainboard as you posted and what it actually is. The GB-8IE2004P (Asus) is for Athlon CPUs, whereas the GA-8IE2004P (Gigabyte) is for P4s. I'm thinking you either have the latter mainboard or the former CPU.

In any even, the sound card may be the culprit. Go to the control panel, hardware, deevice manager and expand the sound,video tab to see if there are any yellow exclamation marks in there. I am just wondering what the conflicting hardware is...

Both mainboards have onboard audio, so you can live without your sound card if it went south.

Also, you may want to make sure you have the latest BIOS. Go to the manufacturers website and check it out. In order to verify that your motherboard has the latest BIOS version, you must boot the system and hit the pause button at the first screen where the memory is being counted. Near the top or bottom of the screen, you will see 1 or 2 lines that will say the model of the motherboard, and usually the BIOS version that the motherboard is using.

The BIOS revision should appear as "BIOS ver xxx". If you can't find this number, you should be able to find a date that the BIOS was released. Check this number against the BIOS release dates on the motherboard manufacturers web site and you should be able to verify which version you have.