start up problems after a freeze

[Mick]

I am running XP home sp2 on a three year old athlon XP1900+ (1.6ghz) with
512MB RAM.
I have recently experienced system freezes, I believe there may be a
software conflict somewhere but cannot work out where as I have not
installed anything previous to the freeze ups starting except for an
automatic windows update (not too sure what it was).

But that is not my main problem, to get out of the freezes I have had to
hold in my on/off button for a few seconds to switch off the PC.
This of course makes scan disk (disk checker) run when I reboot again, which
I always let run.
Today I get the same problem, swith off but when I go to switch on again,
nothing, it will not start up.

The light on the CD flashes, the light on the DVD flashes, then when you
would normally hear a beep, before the A:\ drive light flashes, I get 2
clicks and the PC activity light stays on but nothing further happens.
It seems like the boot up process is getting stuck and cannot start.

I have checked all fittings and wire connections to make sure nothing was
loose but the hardware side of things appeared fine, could this be relatd to
the freeze ups I have been experiencing.

Sorry for the long posting.

mick k

 

[Guest]

The single beep you normaly hear is most likely the post beep. This means
that the system hardware check has passed. Am I understranding this
correctly. You are not getting any video output?

The Woodpile

 

[Mick]

Thats right, it's not getting past the beep so nothing appears on screen.
After trying several times (switching off & on) it did beep and it continued
to boot up and the boot details displayed on screen as normal, unfortunately
it froze again and after switching off it wouldn't start again.

Thanks

 

[Malke]

Thats right, it's not getting past the beep so nothing appears on
screen. After trying several times (switching off & on) it did beep
and it continued to boot up and the boot details displayed on screen
as normal, unfortunately it froze again and after switching off it
wouldn't start again.

Thanks

Since this is an elderly (in Computer Years) machine, the power supply
may have died. It doesn't sound like you have a software problem. I'll
give you my general hardware troubleshooting steps, but I'd start with
the power supply and then move on to testing the RAM.

1) Open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing). Obviously
you can't do this with a laptop, but you can hear if the fan is running
and feel if the laptop is getting too hot.

2) Test the RAM - I like Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an extended period of time - unless
errors are seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.

3) Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from the mftr. Usually
you will download the file and make a bootable floppy with it. Boot
with the media and do a thorough test. If the drive has physical
errors, replace it.

4) The power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for the devices
you have in the system. The adequacy issue doesn't really apply to a
laptop, although of course the power
supply can be faulty.

5) Test the motherboard with something like TuffTest from
www.tufftest.com. Sometimes this is useful, and sometimes it isn't.

Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out suspected parts
with known-good parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are
uncomfortable opening your computer, take the machine to a good local
computer repair shop (not a CompUSA or Best Buy type of store).

Malke

 

[mikeyman]

Malke
Thanks for the troubleshooting steps.
I will go through these over the next couple of days, I'll post back to say
how I got on.

Thanks again.