3 yr old Systemax, XP Pro, Intel mb, dual processor, Raedon 300 graphics card, won’t boot.
I have a 3-year old Systemax mid-tower computer. I was reading a web page, when my mouse became an animated hourglass. The computer was completely locked up and unresponsive to keyboard or mouse. Ctrl, Alt, Del would not bring up the task menu.
Went to have a cup of coffee. Come back 30 minutes later. No change.
Held power button for 5 seconds to shut it off.
Waited about 2 minutes, pushed power button to restart.
Computer appeared to start up, fans turned, disc made its initial access sound, but bios did not appear on screen. Fans, hard disc continues to run. USB keyboard lights function.
I tried turning off the PSU, for 5 minutes No change. Computer power button lights, CD drive opens and closes. Tried boot from OS CD.
Made several additional attempts, PSU turned off before and left on. Restart with power button or reboot switch. No difference.
fans start, HD revs up, you can hear sound of HD initial access, then nothing. Disc and fans continue to run. No bios shows on screen.
I’m not sure where to start, although I have done a reasonable amount of computer repair, including swapping out a bad motherboard. I routinely install memory, disc drives, graphics cards, etc.
It seems obvious that some piece of hardware has failed, but I don’t know where to start. It has a Raedon 300 graphics card but no video on the motherboard.
Start by replacing video card -- borrow one if you can. A failed or overheating video card will often result in a frozen display.
Have you tried a boot after leaving PC turned off for 10 minutes or more?
Also check for video card fan failure, CPU fan failure, dust accumulation, or anything else that might affect cooling.
Thanks for the hint on the frozen display. I'm trying to borrow a graphics card now. I have to find a PCIe or PCI. So far, my friends' boneyards have lots of AGPs or broken PCIes--they have tossed their old PCI cards.
Slight correction: graphics card is ATI X300se
I did try leaving it off for an extended period (20 min. and also 6 hours). I also took out one bank of memory and then swapped for the other bank--no change.
3 yr old Systemax, XP Pro, Intel mb, dual processor, Raedon 300 graphics card, won’t boot.
I have a 3-year old Systemax mid-tower computer. I was reading a web page, when my mouse became an animated hourglass. The computer was completely locked up and unresponsive to keyboard or mouse. Ctrl, Alt, Del would not bring up the task menu.
Went to have a cup of coffee. Come back 30 minutes later. No change.
Held power button for 5 seconds to shut it off.
Waited about 2 minutes, pushed power button to restart.
Computer appeared to start up, fans turned, disc made its initial access sound, but bios did not appear on screen. Fans, hard disc continues to run. USB keyboard lights function.
I tried turning off the PSU, for 5 minutes No change. Computer power button lights, CD drive opens and closes. Tried boot from OS CD.
Made several additional attempts, PSU turned off before and left on. Restart with power button or reboot switch. No difference.
fans start, HD revs up, you can hear sound of HD initial access, then nothing. Disc and fans continue to run. No bios shows on screen.
I’m not sure where to start, although I have done a reasonable amount of computer repair, including swapping out a bad motherboard. I routinely install memory, disc drives, graphics cards, etc.
It seems obvious that some piece of hardware has failed, but I don’t know where to start. It has a Raedon 300 graphics card but no video on the motherboard.
Check the following items in order:
- video card
- ram
- hard drive
- power supply
- other hardware
- check for cmos/post beeps
If none of the above worked, or none found a failing device, then the only thing i can think of is taking it to a repair shop to diagnose it, then doing the necessary repairs yourself to save yourself some money.
Start by replacing video card -- borrow one if you can. A failed or overheating video card will often result in a frozen display.
Have you tried a boot after leaving PC turned off for 10 minutes or more?
Also check for video card fan failure, CPU fan failure, dust accumulation, or anything else that might affect cooling.
Willcomp hit it on the head. Because of his suggestion I started off with checking the graphics card. I was able to buy a Geforce 7300L3 for $25 which was cheap enough to serve as a test, and since it was reasonably equivilent to the suspect Radeon x300, I could just leave it in as my new graphics card.
I installed the new graphics card and everything now works.
Thanks to willcomp and the others that suggested I check out the graphics card first. Now, in retrospect, it seems obvious :-) that was the one to try.
My Systemax AMD -Athlon realeased 01/06/00 is now 11 yrs old. I hear a lot of clicking in tower. The screen shows WAIT... autp detecting pri master... press <ESC> to abort. Sometimes, it progresses to notification of having problem with boot of a: drive. It says insert diskette but who knows where that is now. Could the graphic card be the problem also? I am not as apt to fix myself but would like to at least be able to identify the problem. Any suggestions???
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