I may have done soemthing bad....I went in and unchecked some programs from the auto start menu. shutdown my system and unplugged everything, I was switching to a new keyboard and mouse. plugged everything back in and started the machine up, and it loaded the log on screen, and i put my password in and it took mad long. it just kept saying "loading your personal settings" for like an hour. so i shut the thing off. waited a little while, and now when i try to start back up, the keyboard flashes momentarily, then doesnt recognize it, there is no activity on my monitor at all..the light stays orange and never turns green or anything. dont think the mouse works anymore either, cant see anything anyway. what can i do? windows xp pro on an older HP machine. dont ask me what i removed from the auto start area, not really sure. also, please dont tell me I'm stupid
any help to my long post is greatly 'preciated

hit f8 repeatedly as soon as it powers on - you should get to a menu. "Choose last known hood configuration" and if that doesnt work try "safe mode"

hit f8 repeatedly as soon as it powers on - you should get to a menu. "Choose last known hood configuration" and if that doesnt work try "safe mode"

to continue ,in safe you will be able to use the program you used to stop the startup programs ,did you use msconfig, or hijackthis or some other means !

as caperjack stated what program did you use to remove the autostart programs. not what you removed, and the best option is to use the LASTKNOWN GOOD CONFIGURATION from the F8 menu, once you see the bios screen loaded start hitting F8 until you see a windows startup menu.

PS KEEP THE PC OFF FOR A BIT REMOVE THE POWER AND LET IT STAY FOR ABOUT 30 MIN THEN TRY TO REBOOT.

i USED MSCONFIG, caper. guys, i just tried the f8 thing, and nothing. I am not getting anything on the monitor, and seems that after the initial flash of the keyboard lights, it stops recognizing that as well. caps, num, and scroll dont light.

Press F8 repeatedly otherwise the computer doesn't realise you want the boot menu to show up. Did you just press it once? Once you have pressed F8 a lot, then select the Safe Mode option press enter and it should turn on as normal. Then re-check all the options you unchecked to make sure that it boots.

i didnt exactly count the times i hit that f8, but it was definitely mor ethan once, prolly more like 50-60 times. and nothing. like i said, the monitor is not doing anything when i power up the machine. when i power off, it used to say "no signal" but not no more. thanks for all the help peeps

So nothing appears when you hit F8? Strange, Have you accidentally removed any of the Power supply cables inside the machine? That could cause an issue like this.

i guess anything is possible, i have since unplugged the machine, and it is sitting powerless in my room, gonna let it sit for a little while, then i may go through the machine and reseat my cards and what not, and look for any unplugged power supplies. One question...This is the original port for the monitor that came on the tower, i dont think there is a graphics card, is there possibility that that "died" or am i just reaching now?

If you are plugging your monitor cable into the motherboard of your PC, then you don't have a separate graphics card. If you do plug into a separate graphics card, then unplug it from the graphics card, remove the graphics card from the machine altogether, and plug the monitor directly into the monitor port on your motherboard, if it has one. Then try and boot again. If the same problem persists then it would point to something being wrong with the motherboard, HDD or RAM.

ok, so i let the thing sit for an hour now, no power plugged in or anything. I reseated all my cards. I dont have a seperate graphics card. i turned it on, but same thing. looks like the hard drive light comes on in front initially for 20 secords or so, then turns off and thats the last i see of that. all fans operating correctly, hdd seems to be spinning, as well as when i put a disk in the internal cd. still no display on monitor. i have a reboot disk coming in the next day or so, hopefully...

could be a power supply issue ,giving power but not enough in the right places to boot the OS

What power (W) is your power supply?

dosn't matter what power it is ,it can start hdd and fans and not power up OS because its faulty !see if you can borrow one to try in the comp

yeah, pulled my monitors power cord and switched the two, still same thing...

yeah, pulled my monitors power cord and switched the two, still same thing...

no! talking about the power supply box, inside the computer where the cord plugs into ,not just the power cable

confirm for us does the HDD lights comes on , do you hear the fans in the pc, . IF yes, at the back of the tower, there is a switch on the power supply, turn it off, unplug the power cord, let it sit for a while, now for the monitor, can you bring up the menu and reset to factory defaults, then unplug the power cord. with the power unplugged check the temp on the pc components, the HDD and CPU if they are too hot to touch, let us know.

yes, hdd light comes on when first started, stays lit for 20 seconds, and turns off. and fans are running correctly, i can see them. things didnt get hot. also when started, the lights on the keyboard flash, for a second, the NUM light will come on and off with that key for the initial 20 sec. then nothing.
monitor, turn it on, it does the "acer" logo, then says no signal. menu button does nothing at this point. i did test the monitor on this PC, worked fine, cable workd fine.
I've had it unplugged for a while, gonna let it sit overnight, and continue this nightmare tomorrow.

also think i have a good power supply in some dinosaur downstairs....said tiger on the front of the machine. can i use that to test? are they universal?

compare the wattage on them if the one in the dinosaur is way lower might not do any good, but it's worth a shot at this point.

New keyboard and mouse.

Um, err, could you be plugging them vice versa?

also the power supply in the old computer may have a different mainboard plug ,if they are really old ,pre ATX .wattage shouldn't matter just to try it ,as long as its putting out power on all plugs

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