I'm having PC hardware issues

Tech Talk
#1

A while back, my windows 7-based PC started blue screening and running slow. I thought it may have been a hard drive issue. Today, I finally got the change to play around again, and I’m starting to think the issue is the motherboard? ;_;

What concerns me the most is this:
http://i.imgur.com/cUi56.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UE9vK.jpg

Those are the two places where my computer always gets stuck when I restart. The blank screen (well, the screen with the single flashing line) comes right after the other.

I really don’t want this to be a motherboard issue. Hard Drive, RAM, and GPU would all be easier to deal with. I’m not an expert on hardware, but right now I can’t figure out anything else it’d be. I’m not exactly sure how I’d test this.

Any ideas?

#2

Make sure the ram is properly seated and secure, hard drive issue would be able to tell you. Motherboard issue usually doesnt even get to splash screen.

#3

reinserted the RAM, then tried each stick by itself. No difference.

Could it be some issue with the mobo or psu connecting to the hard drive?

#4

can you get into CMOS from the first screen? are there any beeps? besides the p.o.s.t. (power on self test) beep?

troubleshoot 101:
disconnect HDD and unseat all cards and component cables. Does your mobo have a code error LCD or light/sound sequence to indicate errors?
(if you dont have onboard video, leave vid card)

Cold boot

you should at least be able to get into CMOS… you may get errors for no vid card is present… if it freezes still in the same part then chances are it is your mobo…

Add components one by one cold booting each time as you go. ram/HDD (individually if more than 1) then GPU/s and other cards

Option 2: diconnect hdds and boot… try to get to cmos… if you can, try another HDD

It really could be anything… you have to systematically eliminate the good until the bad

#5

You lost me at CMOS.

I unplugged the DVD drive and HDD, and took out the RAM. I left the GPU, since there isn’t onboard video. When starting up, there’s nothing on the screen and the computer beeps three times (1 long, 2 short). Gonna try adding stuff and see what happens. Maybe I should grab a notebook…

#6

Hold dat!

Popped in 2GB of RAM and it worked fine, but no hard drive. Plugged in my hard drive, and it didn’t work. Put in my windows installation CD and it was fine. I had the hard drive from my old desktop somewhere. So if i try to install windows on that, then maybe it’ll work out?

#7

cables go bad too. try a new cable if you have one as well.

#8

CMOS= Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) is a technology for constructing integrated circuits (such as your BIOS). Source Wikipedia

ed1371 is refering to you BIOS, the terms CMOS and Bios are used interchangeability but CMOS is more of a Text book term as it actually describes the chip in question. On you start up screen you should see what key you have to press to get into your Bios settings. On most computers this is Del key or one of the Function (F1 to F12) keys.

#9

I’ll give that a shot once I figure out if this is working. Found my old HDD. About to pop it in and try to install Windows 7 on it.

#10

Ah, got it. I know what that is, then. And about 95% of the time, I can get there. No issue since unplugging the hard drive, though.

#11

I have a good feeling about this:

#12

It sounds like the HDD to me. After you reinstall, you might get BSOD again if you’re using the same HDD.

#13

yeah I used the wrong term lol but its an old habit from clearing the bios to fix something that was “overtweaked” lol

I miss the days of jumpers all over the mobo… made it more challenging

sounds like he isolated the problem though… hdd sounds like the culpit.

#14

If you get a blue screen again, it helps to tell us what the actual error is. If your computer automatically restarts at the blue screen, follow these steps to disable it.

You’ll also notice on the actual blue screen an area that says “Technical Data” and a stop error code that looks something like this for example:

STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000000, 0xC00E0FF0, 0xFFFFEFD4, 0xC0000000) BAD_POOL_HEADER

This is also good info to pass along when having a BSOD.