Computer dead?

Hi, this morning I turned on my computer and everything worked normally. XP booted, internet worked everything. I then left my computer and came back to it about 10 minutes later to find a STOP warning... I can't remember it exactly but it was something like Driver_irq_not_equal_or_less. So I rebooted to find NOTHING happened, apart from the fan came on inside the case. The moitor acts as if the computer is switched off (it says Check cable - No Signal).

I've opened it up and made sure everything was in properly and it is. The fact that the computer doesn't even beep once when I switch it on (like normally), or a few times for a diagnostic error isn't very reassuring, and I have a horrid feeling the BIOS is corrupt.

Thankfully all the components are still under warranty, although knowing Watford Electronics reputation I might get no response. Does anyone think this sounds like a faulty BIOS or could it be something else?

Thanks, Thomas

 

just disconnect and reconnect everything - and try it again

Edit:

i know what you mean, watford have sent me a faulty mobo (saying it was new, but packaging was open, they said: our engineers had probably tested it, my dad said: yeah right, look i'm sending it back and you'll send me a new one, not a faulty returned mobo)

 

For a long time people thought the Driver_irq_not_less_than_or_equal blue screen was RAM. MS eventually put up a support page for it; which I cant find!

Id do as donkey said but run the system with as few components hooked up as possible. People have narrowed it down to graphics cards too.If the screen pops up again see if it mentions any files because drivers can give this blue sreen too, it might help you narrow it down to a particular component.

 

Thanks for the help, but still no success. I took out the CPU, RAM and all extra cards (graphics etc), and just put the CPU and RAM back in but still no success.

Do you think it's worth taking it to my local computer shop (NOT PC WORLD) to see if they can fix it. If it is the BIOS, will they be able to fix it (it's only a little shop)?

Thanks, Thomas

 

What motherboard have you got? Flashing BIOS is quite easy nowadays, safer too! There always the possibility of it being the PSU.

At least if you do take it to a shop they will probably have spare CPUs, RAM etc they can try. Your right not to take it to PC World, they will probably direct you straight to the HP stand or something!

 

The computer spec can be seen in the my computer section to the right (the motherboard is a FoxConn / WinFast 760GXK8MC.

What I can't understand is, I made a backup of the BIOS recently using SuperUtility which came with the mobo and saved it in my documents. But how am I meant to recover that now if I can't boot the computer, and I don't have another computer with a SATA connector. Also, presuming I could get the BIOS image to restore it, how would I restore it because if the computer doesn't boot from a floppy or anything???

Thanks, Thomas

 

Now I've tried the CMOS reset jumpers and also flashing the bios (but to no avail because it won't load anything off the floppy drive!)

UPDATE: Just tried a different PSU with no luck. I'm hoping it's not the CPU, but instead the motherboard.

Thomas

 

Just tried taking the RAM out and booting up. All I get is a long beep, repeating over and over again. I tried looking up BIOS beep codes, but this one wasn't there.

Thomas

 

what is your BIOS (Pheonix, AMI. contiuous beep with no RAM suggests AMI)

 

It's a Phoenix Bios (and looking round on the internet, the hardest to fix). It wasn't one continous beep, it was a long beep, then nothing, then another long beep, then nothing etc. Will try removing battery. UPDATE: Removing the CMOS battery didn't work.

Thanks, Thomas

 

just read on another forum it was fixed by putting RAM in DIMM 2, try that!

 

Already tried it. Do you think buying a new mobo would solve it? There's one very similar to the one already in for £25 + p&p.

Thanks, Thomas

 

if the new mobo has the same chipset and stuff, you won't have to reinstall XP, if it has a different chipset and stuff then you current build of XP will not function, but i think you can use the repair option on the XP bootable CD, but ignoring that, i think first you shurd eliminate the RAM with Memtest86+ if you find no errors (which i doubt) then think about a new mobo

 

Sadly, I only have one computer that uses 184 pin RAM, so there's no way of running Memtest on (because I can't boot).

Thanks, Thomas

 

Have you tried another PSU yet?

 

Yes I tried a different one out of another computer with the same results. I also ran the other computer on the PSU out the broken computer fine.

Thanks, Thomas

 

After a bit of searching I've found [link=http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.php#0xd1]This[/link] and hopefully u'l get ur computer sorted with this...

 

Thanks, will go thorugh it and look.

Thomas