PC not booting, HELP!

peter7 · 27 Jun 2006 at 15:46

k, put together all the components (see sig). Powered up, BIOS came up and i foolishly changed the RAM speed to ddr667 (which it should be.) from what the default was. i put the XP disc in, set boot priority #1 to CD Drive...and the thing rebooted..great right? No..

Nothing happened after that. So i removed cmos battery, replaced, tried again. i press the power button, everything spins (cpu fan, 2 case fans, leds come on) then goes off within 3 secs. so they all startup then stop and the pc turns itself off...any ideas wtf this is? please guys, this is so so annoying. i cant get into bios or anything, the pc just has a surge of power then nothing,..cheers!

Admiral Huddy · 27 Jun 2006 at 15:59

Sorry, are you saying you aren't getting past the POST or does it not even get that far?

senorstealth · 27 Jun 2006 at 16:00

did you just take the cmos battery out or did you move the jumper as well, just taking the battery out wouldn't do anything

peter7 · 27 Jun 2006 at 16:12

took battery out, and took a stick of ram out and now xp is installing

any reason why this is? it posted and took me into bios first attempt, but i change a ram setting so maybe thats why it didnt boto again, so i had to clear cmos.

cheers

Admiral Huddy · 27 Jun 2006 at 16:23

Yours posts are quite difficult to read.. Anyway, I'm not sure why you removed the battery tbh, clearing the CMOS should clear any settings you should have.

If you are saying that XP is now installing correctly after removing one of your sticks, it could be that stick is faulty or not matched up correctly.

peter7 · 27 Jun 2006 at 17:50

when i try to install windows xp i get the BSOD, with the following info: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
and i have to reboot and cannot complete the xp install..any ideas what this is? i've tried 1 XP OEM disc, and it says there may be an issue with with the CD itself, tried another and that error came up...pls help!

Hlebio · 27 Jun 2006 at 18:20

I got that message when I was having problems with RAM.

If I remember correctly though it means a problem with hardware or a conflict in software but seeing as you aren't in Windows yet it'd have to be hardware.

peter7 · 27 Jun 2006 at 20:54

ive tried changing ram timings in bios to the correct ones. i would run memtest if i could, but it doesnt boot from cd. i keep getting the error NTLDR is missing, and i must restart. ive tried every combination of memory, 1 stick, 2 sticks, different slots etc.

ive removed the hdd from the boot list, ive removed pci cards. on my first attempt to install, the harddrive was formatted (took agesss!) then it started copying files..got to about 20% then said a certain file could not be coppied. it kept doing this so i abandoned because every other file was being skipped. i then tried again, it just rebooted. and now i either cannot boot from cd and get the NLTDR error, or if i do, it goes as far as initialising the windows setup, then jsut randomly reboots.

ive talked to a friend, hes going to give me a DOS CD, and says i should run fdisk (what does this do exactly?) then he`ll help me from there.. its so so so frustrating! i know its not gpu, because the screen loads fine. i dont think its memory, mobo, cpu either. im putting it down to the hdd. reason being i tried to install windows xp ontop of an old version, even though i formatted the drive first i still think its causing errors. so, hopefully 2morro my m8 will sort it, or ill have to take it up to the pc repair guys and fork out £50..so disapointed!!

t31os · 27 Jun 2006 at 21:44

http://www.google.co.uk/search?clie...n&q=ntldr+is+missing&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

FDisk is the old method. Its basicly a boot disk with a few little aps on it for installing the OS and formatting the HDD.

With XP you should never need to use a floppy disk.

peter7 · 27 Jun 2006 at 22:09

hmm..then i really dun know what to do! guess ill have to take it up to the repair guys..hope its not a dodgy component! does it take long to RMA with overclockers?

Admiral Huddy · 28 Jun 2006 at 09:28

peter7 said:
when i try to install windows xp i get the BSOD, with the following info: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
and i have to reboot and cannot complete the xp install..any ideas what this is? i've tried 1 XP OEM disc, and it says there may be an issue with with the CD itself, tried another and that error came up...pls help!

This message is quite common where the memory isn't rgetting enough juice. Check your vdimm settings in BIOS.

t31os · 28 Jun 2006 at 09:56

peter7 said:
hmm..then i really dun know what to do! guess ill have to take it up to the repair guys..hope its not a dodgy component! does it take long to RMA with overclockers?

Depends how quickly you send it back.

Ring OCuk, and they'll give you all the details of how to RMA, they were very helpful when i rang.

Didnt take long to send out a replacement to me whatsoever, but then i dont think there was much to test, the card i recieved was clearly screwed.

peter7 · 28 Jun 2006 at 12:22

Ok, ive tried something here.....Set BIOS to default, thought i`d try again as if the machine had just been built. POSTED, went into BIOS, set 1st boot priority to CD-ROM. I then put the XP disc in, rebooted and Windows Setup began. It started loading all of the windows setup files, then BSOD appeared with the following:

***STOP: 0X0000007E 0XC0000005, 0xF73C5F81, 0xF78D2008,0xF78D1D04)

*** acpi.sys - Address F73C5F81 base at F73AD000, DATESTAMP 411O7d27

Any idea what these errors mean? It said windows has shut down due to hardware fault..

I purchased a 512mb DDR2 stick of ram, put that in, ran the XP CD, and it took me through the setup and my hard drive is now formatting. :eek:

so i've gotten a bit further, but my intial problem was with XP CD copying files from the CD to HDD, but im using a different xp cd now..so hopefully that problem wont arise again...TAKE YOUR RAM BACK OCUK!