PC PROBLEM!!!HELP!!

Hi
when you do switch the PC do you see the a blinking cursor where you can type text in?
if so type, C:, and then press enter, then type, DIR and hit enter, I need to know if your data is still on the PC, or if indeed you have lost every thing, so do as indicated here, and let us know what you see.
Do you hear any bleeps at any time when you put the PC on, and can you hear the hard drive, like a spinning sound?
also feel the back of the PC to see if air is blowing out or not?
What you should do is have a boot disk ready, came with your computer or if you dont have one , download it from:
www.bootdisk.com
but you'll need access to another comp to do this, save to disk.
And find you windows 98 CD and the book that came with it with the registratiopn number on it.
this is all just in case your hard drive has lost all data.
H

there is a blank screen i can hear a huming sound but i dont know about the air blowing out the back.
one time it just started and booted up but when i went to my computer instead of saying floppy drive it said removable drive.at the beging of that startup it said floppy failure.
i know it is not in stand by because it is only ithink a 200MHZ pc

sounds like standby (i've got an 8yr old computer that can go into standby)
if press and hold the power button doesn't work - try disconnecting the power cable - leave for 2 - 30 minutes, then holding the power button in, reconnect the power supply,   you can also look for power/sleep/wakup keys on the keyboard.  These will only work if your system s ATX (soft power switch - no firm solid click when turned on or off).  standby is a function of an ATX power supply.   it could also be that the power supply is faulty and is not registering the command to power back on

Hi
Again
If the floppy drive is at fault, the computer should still boot up. make sure there is no floppy disk in the drive when you power the machine on.
You did'nt say anything about the bleep sounds, we need to know if you hear anything, if as you say the screen is blank then there could be a problem with the graphics card, which will be known to us via the bleeps, 1 bleep then all is ok, if you get a few bleeps then it could be the graphic card, please answer back with how many bleeps if any??????????????

Once again, I think you've put it into STANDBY!

ANY PC with an ATX power supply (i.e. a "soft" power switch) can potentially go into standby.  This is determined by the design of the motherboard and NOT the CPU.  Many P200 systems support standby.  In fact I have a P90 system that goes into standby!

Also the humming sound colud be the hard drive or the proccessor fan, can you see any lights at the front of the box, are they flashing? I'd ask you to open the box and take a look inside, but I dont know if you have done this before, really you should'nt touch it if your not confident, but looking inide can help.
H

Ok jhance, then what about the floppy failure?

What operating system are you running?  If it any version of windows 9x or NT the standby/hibernation feature is run by the OS and not the BIOS like Win2k or XP.  You need to right click on the desktop, left click on properties (or from the control panel go into Display) then open the screen saver tab and look to see if you have a power setting on the bottom.  If you do, go in there and make sure ALL the items are set to NEVER.  That should solve it.

Good Luck

Bill

Verify the power supply is good if all else fails. Is the humming sound from the power supply?

hi
there are lights at the front that come on the green power light just flashes, i can hear a humming sound, i can feel air coming out the back and i hear only one bleep, i tried the standby thing you told me: hold the power on button for 5 sec. does nothing i havent tried the thing where you take out the power supply cable will do tonight. sorry if response takes so long.
points will be increased to 400!!!
and bill i cant even get the thing to start?!
running windows 98 second edition

Hi
If the light is flashing away, then i can assume the hard drive is working, and one bleep is as good as it gets, what im thinking now is you have a graphics problem, I think your nmachine is booting fine, the monitor isnt working isit?
Do you have another graphics card to try?
I'm pritty sure that is the fault....
H

when it was ok the light came on and the monitor worked fine when it is in this "broken mode" the monitor light flashes as well.

Hi besthelp,

I've encountered the same problem as u before. After pc shut down, when I try to power it up again, the power led light just keeps blinking and blinking.

It won't even boot to let u check your CMOS. If u keep holding the power button of your CPU, it could only show u blinking power led light and nothing happens.

To share my personal experience. I've met your cases for more than 10 times (I'm a Pc Engineer but then I feel that I still lack adequate experience and therefore, my nick's like that.)

1st pc, problem was that I tried to switch on the pc immediately after plugging in the power cable which didn't work. My senior engineer told me to plug in the power cable with switch on, let the machine so-call warmup for 5 mins, then try to start it up, it works. (And pc was running fine from 3 months ago till now)

2nd pc, problem was the similar to your description as above. For this case, I have 3 pc's encountering the same problem. And it applies to the ram. Faulty ram. 4 on Pentium III system, 1 on Pentium IV system. BY RIGHT, when rams are faulty, there will be a continuous beeping sound to notify u. But in my case, these 5 system just kept quiet, showing me only blinking green flashing light at the power led.

3rd pc, motherboard's faulty. This is listed as the 3rd cos normally it's unlikely but it's just too bad, diagnosed by 5 engineers from my company and confirmed that it's motherboard's failure. (On board graphics + sound) We tested this faulty's set's ram on another system and it worked fine. Tested CPU on another system and it works fine. After changing another motherboard for this system, eventually boot up.

Other than that, I've my engineers' friends telling me sometimes is due to BIOS battery is flat and therefore u can't boot up. I'm not too sure of this cos I've never encounter this type of situation during my 4 years of work as an engineer.

Hope all this information helps. (And sorry I'm a bit too long-winded)

if you can get into bios (by hitting delete on startup ) load bios default settings (when asked to save changes choose yes and reboot

when you are not able to restart  i think you should be able to shutdown.

Try updating the bios and clean up your computer for examples delete unwanted files.

Go through your computer.
good luck!

very sorry for the delay in replying,
i opened up the machine and WHAT THE HELL is every thing floppy failure because came disconnected i reconnected that and fine. still that same problem,
press the on button (power button) flashes continously
bleep, humming sound, i can feel air coming out the back,i switch on the monitor and it is blank with the green light on the monitor flashes.

i will increse points!
please tell me what i should do

Hi besthelp,

To help u, read my instructions carefully again,

1.) Plug in the power cable with switch on, let the machine so-call warmup for 5 - 10 mins, then try to start it up.

2.) If step 1 fails, with power cable disconnected, now, remove all rams from your system and add in another new piece of ram. Be it borrowed from your friend or you buy a new one.

3.) Motherboard's faulty. This is listed as 3.) cos normally it's unlikely but it may just happen sometimes.

4.) Other than that, I've my engineers' friends telling me sometimes is due to BIOS battery is flat and therefore u can't boot up. I'm not too sure of this cos I've never encounter this type of situation before.

Try all the steps and let me know if your problem is solved.

enter your bios you should be able to do a auto hard drive detection do that ,then load bios defaults then save changes and exit reboot

pc_idiot
there is a slight problem with your first soulution of:
::Plug in the power cable with switch on, let the machine so-call warmup for 5 - 10 mins, then try to start it up.
my on/off swith on the pc is one of those "soft" ones where if you press it in and put the power cable in it is still switched off you have to press it again to power up the pc.(even whilst  holding the switch in and plugging in the cable at the back, it only switches on if you press it agian)
what you say about this BIOS battery is intresting before when it happend the first time, and then i tried to power up after leaving the machine for say about 4 days it would work but then it would stop responding after about an hours operation.
how does this battery look.

joinaunion i cant get to any thing please read the other comments. - no disrespect

Since u feel that there's a slight problem with 1st solution, did u manage to try the rest of the troubleshooting steps?

none taken,but i agree with pc idiot you may have a faulty video card or it has become dislodged from its slot or the memory is bad  so make sure the video card is pushed in good as far as the memory goes take one stick of it out at a time see if it boots if it does on either that is the problem but in any case good luck with your problem and make sure the monitor is not shot  ciao dude

guys im only 17
pc_idiot i dont know how to do step no. 2 or 3 but i think i might know how to replace a battery, is it like a normal battery (one of those thin ones.)
when i opened it up there were a few lose cables just hanging in there. there was alot dust
got rid of it.

joinaunion where is it on the board the video card, how does it look like and what do the ram's look like. if i take out the ram i will have less there only i think 32MB ram (crap i know)
i have still got another 80 points which i want to give away.

slink 9 and joinaunion i guess i am going to get it taken to computer store this kind of stuff is just to complex for me. my cousin's mate runs one.
thank you for your time and patience i will increase points by 30
points are going to be split between joinaunion and slink9
slink9 because he replied to my e-mail and joinaunion for his time an answers which were good.
 Respect from the UK