Really need some help please

[www.ttdown.com]

Hi, I`m not a hundred per cent sure this is the right forum for this
question, `cause I`m not a hundred per cent sure what the problem is,
so I hope this isn`t considered too OT. If there`s a better place for
me to post I`d appreciate any suggestions.
I would really appreciate some help/advice with the following, as I`m
pretty much at my wits end:
I attempted to install a second harddrive into my pc, something which
I`ve done before in other pcs without too much trouble. After swapping
the order of the four drives (two hdds, plus\a cdrom and a cdrw)
around till they all were seen by windows, and in the order that I
wanted, I turned the pc off (cant quite remember why, it was over a
week ago), went and ate. When I switched it back on it wouldn`t boot,
so I got the cmos screen up, and checked that everything looked as it
should. It did, so I tried booting again, and it would hang each time,
the only way I could get out of the hang was to pull the plug out. So
I did this maybe a dozen times, then had the "bright" idea of
resetting the cmos jumper on the mobo. Nothing drastic happened, good
or bad, so I reset the clock/date made sure the hdd settings were set
to "auto", and then exited. It hung again, so I pulled the plug, and
then Nothing. The fan comes on, and the light, but that`s it. I have
an AOC monitor that turns itself off onto standby mode if it dosn`t
get a signal, which is what happens when I plug it in now. I`ve tried
disconnecting all drives and just running it with ram, and graphics
(it`s onboard, not a seperate card), but still the monitor switches to
standby, giving a "no signal or cable disconnected" message first.
There`s no beeps, no floppy boot if I connect the floppy. Just the
light and fan.
So, I desperately needed to check my email, so I got my older, slower
pc, that I never use and plugged that in the monitor for a few days,
while I tried to look up some advice as to what might be wrong.
Then, yesterday, I read on a techrescue.net forum that someone with a
similar problem was being advised to try some different ram, in case
the chips had blown. So I took the ram from the working, older pc, and
tried it in my main, not working one. Didn`t make a difference, and
when I put the ram back in the older pc, I now get the same responce
from the monitor on this one too! :-( (although the hdd makes some
reasuring noises on this one still).
I`m now down to my last pc, an old barely functioning laptop, with a
broken cdrom, and a dodgy floppy. But obviously (and thankfully) the
modem works.
I`m disabled, hardly ever get out of the house, and my pc is, quite
litterally, my lifeline. If anybody can get me out of this mess I will
be eternally grateful to them.

Mark

 

[John]

I`m disabled, hardly ever get out of the house, and my pc is, quite
litterally, my lifeline. If anybody can get me out of this mess I will
be eternally grateful to them.

Mark

Things usually dont go that bad by adding a HD.
The most obvious thing is maybe you knocked things loose - unseated
things when mucking around in the PC or left a screw in there loose
thats shorting something on the MB.

I would take everthing out and make sure the RAM , Video card and
processor are seated properly and if that doesnt work clear the CMOS.

You should get the bios screen at least.

After that add one hard disk.

 

[warren faire]

i would guess that you must fiddle with the ram so it is read. also check
you have the right cpu selected after clearing cmos.

 

[Sharkie]

have you tried rebooting per your old config w/o the new hdd.
when it hangs and you get into bios - do you see your hdd and other
peripehrals detected by bios?

have you set the jumpers on the hard disks correctly ie primary master
n slave and cd and cdrw secondary master n slave.

did you put the cables in correctly (i made that mistake once)

wht i would do is just plug in 1 hdd with an os any try to boot, if it
doesnt id go to bios and restore defaults and try again and hopefully
it detects the hdd.

 

[Stephen Austin]

I attempted to install a second harddrive into my pc, something which

I`ve done before in other pcs without too much trouble. After swapping
the order of the four drives (two hdds, plus\a cdrom and a cdrw)
around till they all were seen by windows, and in the order that I
wanted, I turned the pc off (cant quite remember why, it was over a
week ago), went and ate. When I switched it back on it wouldn`t boot,
so I got the cmos screen up, and checked that everything looked as it
should. It did, so I tried booting again, and it would hang each time,
the only way I could get out of the hang was to pull the plug out. So
I did this maybe a dozen times, then had the "bright" idea of
resetting the cmos jumper on the mobo. Nothing drastic happened, good
or bad, so I reset the clock/date made sure the hdd settings were set
to "auto", and then exited. It hung again, so I pulled the plug, and
then Nothing. The fan comes on, and the light, but that`s it. I have
an AOC monitor that turns itself off onto standby mode if it dosn`t
get a signal, which is what happens when I plug it in now. I`ve tried
disconnecting all drives and just running it with ram, and graphics
(it`s onboard, not a seperate card), but still the monitor switches to
standby, giving a "no signal or cable disconnected" message first.
There`s no beeps, no floppy boot if I connect the floppy. Just the
light and fan.
So, I desperately needed to check my email, so I got my older, slower
pc, that I never use and plugged that in the monitor for a few days,
while I tried to look up some advice as to what might be wrong.
Then, yesterday, I read on a techrescue.net forum that someone with a
similar problem was being advised to try some different ram, in case
the chips had blown. So I took the ram from the working, older pc, and
tried it in my main, not working one. Didn`t make a difference, and
when I put the ram back in the older pc, I now get the same responce
from the monitor on this one too! :-( (although the hdd makes some
reasuring noises on this one still).

What's the rating of your power supply? It's possible (although perhaps not
the most likely solution) that by adding the second drive, you pushed the
power supply beyond its limits, thus causing a RAM failure (although I've
never known this to happen before). That something in the computer is
causing your RAM to physically fail is fairly obvious, since the stick from
your second machine worked before & failed after as it were. Things to try
and not try:
If you can, get hold of another power supply, not necessarily new, perhaps a
friends or something like that and try it. Preferably of a higher rating
than your existing one.
DON'T try putting anymore RAM in it until your fairly sure you know what the
cause of the problem is and are reasonably sure you've solved it. (sorry, I
have a habit of stating the obvious sometimes.... )

Hope it works out, feel free to ask away, try providing system specs like
processor, RAM graphics etc along with PSU rating if you find you need more
help.

Good luck,
Steve