Help Needed..thanks

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:03 pm

Allright I have asked so many people about this I have gotten very tired of explaining my problem and haven't even tried to fix it for months, but today my computer started going crazy so I thought I better ask some people that know there stuff. Here goes.
When I first turn on my computer in the morning(I don't leave it on 24-7) it doesn't want to boot up. It will freeze at the very first screen that comes up, then I power it down wait a couple of seconds and try again. Same thing, it freezes on the first screen. Allright wait, try again and the next time it usually gets a couple of screens in and then it freezes a third time(it doesn't freeze more than 3 times). After the initial wave of freezes a new problem occurs, it will constantly reboot while loading. Each time it reboots it lets out a chirping sound, kind of like a little bird not so much a click as a chirp. And it will keep rebooting, over and over at different stages of booting up for about 5 minutes, and with each reboot it will get closer and closer to actually starting up and then finally it will load. It seems as though it is warming up or something, you know how you have to sit in your car for a while when it snows.
Until today once I actually got it going it would not reboot again, but today I was running photoshop and listening to some tunes and bam, a chirpy reboot. I have been told that I may have bad ram, which doesn't make much sesnse cause if my ram was bad how could I game and stuff, why would the ram only be bad during boot up. Plus I checked each stick and the computer did the same thing wether they were in or not.
Others have said it may be my harddrive, but I have ran system works, defragged and done every imaginable test and it has passed all of them. I have not ruled it out but I am not sure.
And the third thing people tell me is that maybe my power supply is bad. I never had power problems before, so I would have no clue how to tell if it was bad, and if it was the power is that hard to do myself and is it expensive. The power thing seems the most logical to me, only because of the whole warming up thing.
I hope someone here can help me, I will really appreciate any help or ideas you guys can offer me. At this point any idea is a good idea. Oh yeah it is a 1ghz athlon with 384 ram and a geforce 2 gts, if you need anymore info just ask. Thanks again.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2194

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:10 pm

Hmm, sounds like a static problem, Did you happen to open up the computer and maybe discharge static on the motherboard by any chance? I heard this is what happends when a computer get's "static" damage, but I never experienced it. Bad ram sounds like one thing, but like you said, if you can game and stuff, it is pretty ironic that it would be that. I don't think it's the hard drive though, a bad hard drive would usually cause problems such as slowness, weird sounds (griding), the "is it just me or do you smell burning rubber" situation etc... usually a bad hard drive goes caput suddently. But it still is a possibility, that maybe it's just shorting out or something.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2197

Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:23 pm

Have you checked the system for viruses and spyware?

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Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:40 pm

Yeah I have done a full system scan twice in the last month, and checked for spyware a couple of weeks ago. I even reinstalled windows a few weeks ago, completely cleaning everything out and still the same thing.

That static thing scares the crap out of me but the only problem is until I opened it up yesterday to check the ram and see if anything was loose, I haven't even poped the case. The last time I opened it was when I put my network card in but that was almost a year ago, and it worked fine afterward. Thanks for all the help, I am probably going to end up forking out some money to have someone look at it, I just kind of want to have some crazy ideas in my head in case they try an bull**** me.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2203

Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:48 pm

I know what you mean...have you been to PCPitstop and ask for help? You can test your system there and post the results for troubleshooting by their members.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2205

fishyfool · Post by **fishyfool** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 3:09 am

sounds like a bad power supply, or one thats just not powerful enough for everything you are trying to run.
when you boot your computer is when it is pulling the most power.
an unstable power supply(or one that is barely able to run everything)
will cause random reboots.
do you have a good name brand power supply of at least 300 watts, or do you have a cheese power supply?
anyway, from what you've said, i'd swap out the power supply.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2827

rovingcowboy · Post by **rovingcowboy** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 6:33 pm

going on the fact i fried two power supplys i dont think it is the power supply but it will as fishyfool said cause strange rebooting.

the fact that nobody said anything about the chip is bothersome to me. the chirp is a code for you to know what is going on next time it does it count the beeps and how fast they are then call the computer manufacture and tell their support person what they are.

they can then check the records for your type of system and tell you what is wrong.

but you did right in checking for loose cards but there is also the fact that your ram might be bad and still work. this is because it is likely to cause a short in side the chip if it is cracked or fried on the inside it will sepreate and cause the short which will shut down the computer thus cooling the ram just enough so it touches again and starts up.

you then get it hot enough maybe to allow it to expand inside the chip so it will continue to contact the two sides when it is hot thus letting you use the computer long enough that windows sees the bad ram and blocks it from use.

this is kind of what the static will do.

you got to remember static to you is like a lightining bolt to the computer chips.

kind of like turning on a burnt out light bulb by shakeing it until both halfs of the filliment touch so it will light.

it will work but when you shut it off it is then not working again.

that is the only thing i can think of.

other then a bad driver for some hardware or for some software causing the reboot.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2926

fishyfool · Post by **fishyfool** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 10:02 pm

http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=beep+...+codes&ei=UTF-8
good point. i have one that chirps, not beeps, once in awhile. doesn't seem to be anything.
sometimes the beeping is the cpu over heating, but that sounds like an alarm, you know a constant sound.
other than that, the beep codes are what you'll hear when the computer posts, a single short beep means every thing is ok.
a slow steady beep beep beep is usually bad ram, one long beep and one short one is a bad video card. this is all for my msi motherboard. different bios's have different beep codes, ami vs phoenix.
the way you said it won't boot, and it reboot spontainiously, still makes me think it's a bad, or underpowered powersupply.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:437, old post ID:2941