Black Raven Dragoons

[Cephalxn]

my computer has just shit itself, and i have no fucking idea why...

here's what happened.

Turn it on.

Boots up fine, check various forums and emails.

Load wow.

Play for around 15 minutes.

Then all of a sudden my graphics go all crazy, i can't alttab out, use the windows key or do anything.

Restart.

Some fucking bios screen comes up with shit like "Please enter file name for new bios" and "enter password" (what fucking password?).

Restart.

Computer booting shit. (see below)

CPU1* Intel Pentium 4 3066
CPU2 Intel Pentium 4 3066

then under that is a bunch of numbers climbing to 1040000 (or something), which i'm guessing is my ram... but once it gets to 104000 it goes back to zero and starts again.. repeat x infinity.

It says i can hit del to enter setup, but if i do, it goes to a blank screen with a blinking cursor top left and resets after a minute or so.


WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

-_-

i don't have enough money to pay train fines, let alone afford a new computer... sigh.

[Snobal]

First off, im sorry to hear that cause that just sucks but i know how to configure the bios settings hit the F10 key on start up (loading screen)and for the password, if you havent already configured it, it should be by default ADMIN or admin or administration (i know i have really good grammer) try those for the username if it calls for one as well. Im in Atlanta now so i cant help much. Should be back by Saturday... Sorry

[Cephalxn]

i let the computer sit for half an hour or so, and it boots up fine... then around 2 minutes later the graphics go all shitty again and i can't do anything... my guess is that my graphics card is on the fritz... but i don't have another lying around to test it...

[Aigle]

I was wondering why you hadn't been on =/ I'm completely useless when it comes to computers..So..I hope you get the issue resolved soon /hug

[Zancarius]

Some fucking bios screen comes up with shit like "Please enter file name for new bios" and "enter password" (what fucking password?).

That almost sounds like a corrupted BIOS but quite possibly not.

CPU1* Intel Pentium 4 3066
CPU2 Intel Pentium 4 3066

Probably the same CPU unless you have one of the dual-core jobs.

then under that is a bunch of numbers climbing to 1040000 (or something), which i'm guessing is my ram... but once it gets to 104000 it goes back to zero and starts again.. repeat x infinity.

Some BIOSes will run the memory test about four times if something goes wrong during boot just in case there is a faulty stick of RAM in the board.

It says i can hit del to enter setup, but if i do, it goes to a blank screen with a blinking cursor top left and resets after a minute or so.

That's not normal.

Without getting a better idea of what's going on, there's only a couple of things that come to mind:

1) It might be something to do with the BIOS. AFAIK, modern viruses generally can't overwrite the EEPROM and very few would try anyway. They are usually written exclusively to spread. On the other hand, if you recently ran any updates from the motherboard manufacturer (or other vendor, if you bought the unit as a whole), it's possible something Very Bad(tm) has happened to the BIOS. I doubt it, though, because you would not normally be able to boot into Windows.
2) It might be a bad stick of RAM. This is a bit harder to diagnose, though and all solutions require you to pop the case. If you choose to take a look, try to find out how many sticks you've got. If you have about a gig of RAM, you probably have two (it is sometimes a bit more cost effective this way). Modern DDR boards usually have two channels with two slots a piece. If you pop a stick out, make sure it's the one in the SECOND bank (usually labelled bank 1 or bank B--the board will normally be numbered starting from ZERO). Then try booting and see what happens. Maybe even enter BIOS and have a look around.

The reason I say faulty RAM is a real PITA is because of the symptoms. Usually you won't notice anything's amiss until you load up an application that consumes a lot of memory (like WoW) or allocates memory like there's no tomorrow (compiling will usually find this problem--other times only benchmarking apps will uncover it). If it's only freezing up when you're playing WoW, it's probably the RAM. IIRC, Turus ran into a similar problem with his 64-bit rig when it had some new high performance memory. You might want to let it boot up and sit idle for about 15-20 minutes, even overnight, and see what happens.

[Cephalxn]

i opened her up and cleaned the dust out of everything incase it was something to do with overheating.. then i tried checking both sticks of 512, no difference... now when i said those numbers were runnning (memory check or whatever), i used to just restart after the 3rd or 4th time through... so i did as you said and it ran through... then i got an even worse screen... it was like, flashing red saying "disk boot failure, please insert sytem disk and press enter to conintue" and it had numbers and shit above that writing... argh this is the fucking worst... maybe i'll just get one of my olds to take it to a qualified dude...

[Zancarius]

"disk boot failure, please insert sytem disk and press enter to conintue"

Interesting, so it turned out to be the hard disk? That sounds rather peculiar, but it is apparent that the drive could be failing.

Disk failures are usually accompanied by strange noises, although not always, which is why they're normally easy to isolate. On the other hand, you're getting a taste of just how annoying hardware can be to diagnose =)

maybe i'll just get one of my olds to take it to a qualified dude...

That sounds like the best option at this point. Nearly all serious computer issues can only be diagnosed by an experienced technician with access to the system.

Anyway, good luck with it! I hope you get everything worked out. By the sounds of it, you may only have to replace the hard disk. With any luck, you should be able to recover some data from it unless it's totally borked.

[Cephalxn]

yeah i've decided to unplug it... because it was managing to boot sometimes and it seemed like eveerything was there... so to minimize the risk of losing everything i don't think i'll be switching it on any time soon..


so sorry guys looks like i'm out of action for a while

and i just hit fkn Sergeant too!

[Cephalxn]

okay so i couldn't help myself, i was like "she's just on her rags, plug her back in and it'll be sweet, and time for some loving"

no loving was recieved.

although i managed to boot into windows, my graphics card proceded to tell me that it wasn't recieving enough power, and had reconfigured it's settings accordingly..

so.... i don't know... but yeah.

the plot thickens...

[Zancarius]

That is really odd. You didn't inadvertently unplug the 4-pin connector from the graphics card while fiddling around at all, did you? I couldn't imagine it would be a problem with the power supply given the other incidents you've described...

If you have hardware savvy friends, I'd suggest taking it to them, otherwise a repair shop might be in order. At this point, I certainly can't offer any suggestions without being able to see the hardware myself.

[Lithium]

Man... I'm sorry ceph. this is awful to hear. we all miss you dude. hope you're up and running again soon.

/guildlove

[Cephalxn]

*shrugs*

hopefully all will be well soon.

i need my fix!



if anyone misses me that much they can always jump on msn and molest me on it.

mugged _ by _ a _ rabbit (at) hotmail (dot) com

[Zancarius]

Ooh, I might have to do that. Gaim supports MSN =)

[Grimblast]

Hahahaha, I like the email address. So menacing!