Whats gone wrong?

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:00

A friend has brought their computer to me and told me it doesnt work. The computer turns on and I can get into the bios fine but it wont load the OS thats installed on the HDD and wont boot from CD either to do a re-install. I have ran memtest 86 with 4 passes, so the ram is fine. Tried 3 Hard drives (2 of which are known to be working) and 2 DVD drives (one loaded the memtest cd so presumed working?) I have stripped it down to the basics and is out on my desk with PSU, MB, CPU+Fan, Ram, GPU, 1 HDD, 1 DVD. Im at a loss to what this could be, any ideas?

PermaBanned · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:02

CPU temps?

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:03

Checked, in the bios they were idleing @ 40 ish (hot but not terrible)

Edit, its a P4 so 40 isnt that bad.

PermaBanned · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:05

Just a stab in the dark but it might be a motherboard problem, if no hard drives or dvd drives work then the SATA/IDE controller might be borked.

What are the system specs?

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:08

Its a Packard Bell.

P4 3.06
2GB DDR2 (4x512mb)
Gigabyte GA-8I915PMD
Passive Graphics card
160GB HDD
Generic PSU
Generic DVD

anything else?

I thought it was a MB problem too, but have no way of knowing if it is...

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:10

I have also removed the CMOS battery for 5 mins to reset the CMOS and no change.

Musty Pie · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:38

"it wont boot from CD either"

"It booted memtest CD"

Does not compute?

UKDTweak · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:41

Are the HDD being detected in the BIOS, listed correctly, no strange characters in the names?
Have you tried replacing the IDE cable?

NathWraith · 4 Jun 2010 at 14:44

Musty Pie said:
"it wont boot from CD either"

"It booted memtest CD"

Does not compute?

Ha well noticed. Upgrade time I think

Musty Pie · 4 Jun 2010 at 15:00

NathWraith said:
Ha well noticed. Upgrade time I think

You WOULD say that!

Although i have to agree. I mean P4 .... Dinosaur much?

And i know the EXACT PB machine he will have too! The motherboards are DIOBBOLICAL and fail all the time.

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:02

Musty Pie said:
"it wont boot from CD either"

"It booted memtest CD"

Does not compute?

It boots fine from the memtest CD, but not from my windows disk which I know works.

UKDTweak said:
Are the HDD being detected in the BIOS, listed correctly, no strange characters in the names?
Have you tried replacing the IDE cable?

Both are detected fine in BIOS, the HDD is SATA and I have tried a different cable, yes.

NathWraith said:
Ha well noticed. Upgrade time I think

If it was my computer it would have been upgraded a long time ago, but its a friends who doesnt have any spare cash, at all...

Musty Pie said:
You WOULD say that!

Although i have to agree. I mean P4 .... Dinosaur much? And i know the EXACT PB machine he will have too! The motherboards are DIOBBOLICAL and fail all the time.

Like I said, Its not my money to be upgrading it. They used to have 2 of these exact machines, the motherboard failed on the first one too

Is it definately the motherboard gone before I start to try and find the cheapest possible replacement MB?

thingemajib · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:09

dont suppose you have a usb cd drive to try booting the windows disk off?

Relentless81 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:11

Does it detect the HDD with windows on in the BIOS

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:28

thingemajib said:
dont suppose you have a usb cd drive to try booting the windows disk off?

No I don't, think im going to buy one soonish though.

Relentless81 said:
Does it detect the HDD with windows on in the BIOS

It detects the HDD in the bios fine, but I havent been able to boot into windows.

Relentless81 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:32

And the boot prioity is correct? I know its basic but if the BIOS has been reset to default for any reason these things come into play without realising

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:40

Yeah, check boot order multiple times. I changed it to boot from CD then HDD and still wouldnt load off my windows disk.

I am rebuilding an old rig that I had laying around that will cover them for a minute,
P4 517 2.93 + HT
1GB DDR2 (2x512)
Foxcon MB
WD 80GB HDD
Generic PSU

Will do them until they get a new one, will try and get enough cash together for a budget athlon X2 build.

Relentless81 · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:44

Ok, I have a AMD 4200 x2, Asus A8N32 and 4GB of GEIL if its of any interest, I want to put it on the market place on here but its not appeared yet even though I have 250+ posts not sure what going on there

PermaBanned · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:50

If it doesn't boot into Windows does it boot into a Linux CD?

QlimaxUK · 4 Jun 2010 at 17:51

try resetting the bios/cmos via the jumpers on the board, check boot priority, if there is more than 1 optical drive take out all leaving 'the best one' in, is the bios able to keep any changes you made after restart or when switched off (at mains) does it reset then?

Ryan111 · 4 Jun 2010 at 18:09

Relentless81 said:
Ok, I have a AMD 4200 x2, Asus A8N32 and 4GB of GEIL if its of any interest, I want to put it on the market place on here but its not appeared yet even though I have 250+ posts not sure what going on there

How much would you be looking for this? Message me in trust, you are not allowed to talk about sales outside of the MM.

Superewza said:
If it doesn't boot into Windows does it boot into a Linux CD?

I havent tried booting into Linux, dont really understand linux if im honest.

QlimaxUK said:
try resetting the bios/cmos via the jumpers on the board, check boot priority, if there is more than 1 optical drive take out all leaving 'the best one' in, is the bios able to keep any changes you made after restart or when switched off (at mains) does it reset then?

I have reset the CMOS by removing the battery, only have 1 optical installed and yes it does keep settings.