Oh. Crap.

Secondary (Gaming) PC System Specs:

hp Pavilion a320n
2800+ AMD Athlon XP Processor
512MB DDR SDRAM
120GB Ultra DMA Hard Drive
Blah blah blah CD drives info
nVidia GeForce 4 MX (I know I need a new one, bugger off. Not the point...)


Hokay, so here's the situation. I'm updating Adobe Photoshop CS2, and I have to reboot. So, I restart my PC, and up pops that bloody annoying System Check thing. I sit there for about 15 minutes when *bam* the power goes out for another of those brief "WTH?!" moments. When the lights come back on, I'm thinking, no biggie, I'll just restart and wait it out some more.

hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.
hp invent.

For the next 20 minutes, I stare at that big, ugly, blue and white logo.

F1=Setup? No it doesn't. F1=Jack Crap!
F10=System Recovery? Bull. Doesn't do a thing!

I tried using this PC to create an emergency boot disc. That didn't work... Can't boot from any disc, Floppy or CD. So my Windows XP CD and new emergency floppy are worthless. Tried restarting and slamming the good ol' F8 key, but no luck!

I'm sitting here typing at this, seeing that ugly, blue and white logo out of the corner of my eye. It scares me...

Google has failed me. Hopefully someone here can help me where the massive engine of data could not...


Edit- Trying this method just to see... http://www.techimo.com/forum/archive.../t-145836.html

If it doesn't even get into BIOS (F1 setup thingy) it indeed is messed up bigtime.

Clearing CMOS might work, as mentioned in the link you posted, so try that, the manuals that came with the computer should tell which jumper it is/how to do it. Or just pull off the power plug, and take off the BIOS battery (round silvery one) for minute or two, then place it back, this way you don't have to hassle with the jumper.

Yeah.. This is an older PC that once belonged to my careless mother before I rescued it from her grubby, virus-loving hands... Tonight is actually the first time I've pulled it apart. I couldn't for the life of me find the jumper (normally can; hate this stupid motherboard) so I jacked the battery and pulled the power supply off the motherboard, just like that guy suggested in that threa

I'm just lost here because in all the years I've been working with computers (which is sadly since I was old enough to hold a screwdriver properly) I've never had this happen... Bah, humbug. Guess we all have to learn sometime...

Now, I wait a few hours...

*wishing he could whistle*

Mine did the exact same thing... and I only got it resoved by renewing the Motherboard, CPU fan and CPU... took 5 days. My guild thought I died or summat

In my case, the motherboard forgot about the CPU fan, the fan stopped working and the CPU burnt out, so check if the fan is still on (the internal one btw, not external)

You guys will never believe this...

I just put the battery back in, and hooked the PC back up.

Nothing. So I got pissed. I kicked the thing.... And it shot into life!

Guess we know how to fix PC's in the future... Thanks for the replies.

Sounds liek you got a loose connection somewhere, so don't be surprised if it happens again. Try not to move the system around too much.

The system never moved I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the power dying in the middle of the System Check. The kick... Erm, probably just luck, or irony, or maybe I sorta kicked it before I had waited long enough to see if it was working properly... Like... In the general vicinity of the power button...

Power outage could have caused a surge. You have your comp on a decent surge protector? Not a $10 one, but a good surge protector.

A friend of mine had a very similar thing happen. A surge while he was booting up. The comp froze and when he restarted he got nothing. Lost his mobo and HD. He was not happy.

i use a good brand UPS which is much more protection than a surge arrester

And costs a fair lot more than a 10 bux surge protector

Yeah I used to have a UPS. Ironicly enough it died from a surge. But nothing else was harmed. I'm using a Monster PC800 now. It's $100 retail, I got it for $50 though. No UPS on it, but it's a damn good surge protector.