I think a virus won't let me boot

[sdlomi2]

Last Sat. I booted up fine & worked on comp. 20 minutes & it froze.
Hard-booted, and again 20-min before freeze. Con>alt>del would not phase
it. Rebooted, and got 1/2 way thru ram count, and froze. Next reboot, got
1/4 way thru ram count. Next & subsequent reboots & won't even post.
Sound like a boot virus? One That changed/reflashed/corrupted my bios?
If so, where do I go from here? Asus A7N8X mobo running WinXP Pro.
Thanks for help, sdlomi

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Last Sat. I booted up fine & worked on comp. 20 minutes & it froze.
Hard-booted, and again 20-min before freeze. Con>alt>del would not phase
it. Rebooted, and got 1/2 way thru ram count, and froze. Next reboot, got
1/4 way thru ram count. Next & subsequent reboots & won't even post.
Sound like a boot virus?

No, because during POST (power on self test) nothing from the disk is
even being loaded. Sounds much more like you have a hardware problem ...
CPU, motherboard, PSU, or memory failure.

 

[MJD]

Sounds like a dying HDD.

 

[MJD]

Nah, sorry, as you say it won't even get to POST, it must be something else,
but I still suspect hardware.
Have you got another PC to try the HDD in?

 

[Jeffrey A. Setaro]

Last Sat. I booted up fine & worked on comp. 20 minutes & it froze.
Hard-booted, and again 20-min before freeze. Con>alt>del would not phase
it. Rebooted, and got 1/2 way thru ram count, and froze. Next reboot, got
1/4 way thru ram count. Next & subsequent reboots & won't even post.
Sound like a boot virus? One That changed/reflashed/corrupted my bios?
If so, where do I go from here? Asus A7N8X mobo running WinXP Pro.
Thanks for help, sdlomi

Nothing you've described indicates the presence of a virus... It sounds
like a hardware (or thermal) problem. I'd start by checking the CPU fan
and making sure it's free of dust and working properly. Check the fans
for the power supply and the case if any (some systems have fans mounted
in the front or rear of the case that blow over the MLB and expansions
slots).

Other possibilities include a bad/failing MLB, bad/failing RAM, or a
bad/failing HDD (I'd bet on a thermal problem though).

--
Cheers-

Jeff Setaro
jasetaro <at> mags.net
http://people.mags.net/jasetaro/
PGP Key IDs DH/DSS: 0x5D41429D RSA: 0x599D2A99 New RSA: 0xA19EBD34

 

[Gabriele Neukam]

On that special day, sdlomi2, ([email protected]) said...

Last Sat. I booted up fine & worked on comp. 20 minutes & it froze.
Hard-booted, and again 20-min before freeze. Con>alt>del would not phase
it. Rebooted, and got 1/2 way thru ram count, and froze. Next reboot, got
1/4 way thru ram count. Next & subsequent reboots & won't even post.

That looks like a heat problem. Please check if the cooler is still
touching the cpu in your computer, and the fan running properly.


Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)

 

[FromTheRafters]

Last Sat. I booted up fine & worked on comp. 20 minutes & it froze.
Hard-booted, and again 20-min before freeze. Con>alt>del would not phase
it. Rebooted, and got 1/2 way thru ram count, and froze. Next reboot, got
1/4 way thru ram count. Next & subsequent reboots & won't even post.
Sound like a boot virus?
No.

One That changed/reflashed/corrupted my bios?
No.

If so, where do I go from here?

If so, I don't know. If not? ~
To the computer repair shop.

Might be faulty memory sticks or any of a wide variety of
other hardware problems.

 

[Paul Schilter]

Had a problem with my laptop once. It would start to boot, then shutoff.
Tech support had me remove the AC power and battery and press and hold the
power button on for a few seconds, this is supposed to zero out residual
voltage. Hooked up the AC again and tried to boot up, same thing. Next we
removed the harddrive, floppy & DVD combo drive and finally the memory.
After each item I tried to reboot but got the same results until after I had
removed the extended ram. Now it booted up fine. Figured I'd have to buy
more memory but after putting each of the items back in and rebooting it
worked fine. Go figure?
Paul

 

[Paul Schilter]

Gabriele,
Along those thoughts, I placed one of those aluminum defrosting
platforms under my laptop, figured it dissipate the heat better then the
desktop. Thought I'd pass along the idea.
Paul

 

[brushes]

Had a problem with my laptop once. It would start to boot, then shutoff.
Tech support had me remove the AC power and battery and press and hold the
power button on for a few seconds, this is supposed to zero out residual
voltage. Hooked up the AC again and tried to boot up, same thing. Next we
removed the harddrive, floppy & DVD combo drive and finally the memory.
After each item I tried to reboot but got the same results until after I had
removed the extended ram. Now it booted up fine. Figured I'd have to buy
more memory but after putting each of the items back in and rebooting it
worked fine. Go figure?
Paul

disconnect all IDE cables from the motherboard and then boot, if it goes all
the way through to 'non-system drive/not found message then you have
isolated it to one of the now disconnected devices. If you still get errors
then now pointing to the board/cpu or memory. If you have more than one
memory stick remove one and try again, if it still fails swap stick, then
swap slot. If you still get errors then starting to look like the board/cpu
for which it is easier to take it somewhere with advanced diagnostic tools.
Bear in mind though that some places charge the equivalent to a replacement
mobo for testing!

B

 

[Gabriele Neukam]

On that special day, Paul Schilter, (paulschilter@comcast) said...

Along those thoughts, I placed one of those aluminum defrosting
platforms under my laptop, figured it dissipate the heat better then the
desktop. Thought I'd pass along the idea.

Neat. But over here in Germany, we don't get them. I tried it with a
frozen cooler box plastic-pad-with-water-inside thingie (we call them
akku, but I am afraid they are named differently elsewhere); but the
lower side of my specimen is so bumpy, there was hardly any contact
possible to cause any effect on the harddisk or cpu.

Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)

 

[sdlomi2]

On that special day, Paul Schilter, (paulschilter@comcast) said...


Neat. But over here in Germany, we don't get them. I tried it with a
frozen cooler box plastic-pad-with-water-inside thingie (we call them
akku, but I am afraid they are named differently elsewhere); but the
lower side of my specimen is so bumpy, there was hardly any contact
possible to cause any effect on the harddisk or cpu.

...and even I know that using Arctic Silver would not be
cost-effective...sdlomi
BTW: Thanks for your input.

 

[sdlomi2]

Thanks to all. Decided to replace A7N8X(which tested bad),
2500-Barton(which checked bad, as it would not even post under test), and
hard drive. Hope to somehow save the data--most important was backed up,
but I'm a pack-rat, even with data! Dunno yet if hd-drives were lost at the
same time.
Hoping to get cpu RMA'd: had 3 year warr. & 2 days old; hoping same for
mobo: was 3 months old.
Thx again, sdlomi