OT: killed my computer

Can't get to the CMOS setup? Hmm.. maybe the CMOS data is corrupted or the battery is dead.

Until you can get to the BIOS setup there's not much point in tryihng anything else.

Did you change anything else (eg. video card or RAM) at the same time?

At least you have a complete backup!

There ought to be a shorting conector on the motherboard Karl. Connecting the pins with one of those little black rectangular bridges will clear the CMOS and restore the default setup parameters. Look on the board or in the instruction manual.

JC

Test your power supply. Take out all cards and memory modules, clean contacts. Reset the CMOS. Try power-up with nothing other than a video card (if the video isn't on board) and one memory module. Try the memory module in different slots if it won't POST. Swap power supply with a known good one. If you get it to POST, hook up one thing at a time. (hard drive, optical, floppy, etc.)

Could be a failing hard drive or CDROM. Disconnect all IDE cables and see if you can now get setup and also boot from floppy (warning, If an IDE/ATA device is mis-configured or not present, some BIOSes can take about five minutes to enter setup so be prepared to wait). If so, reconnect one at a time untill you find the failing device.

Try pulling all peripherals (including the HDD and optical drives) but one stick of RAM - if it still can't find the BIOS , try another stick of RAM . You obviously have a backup for 'net access , do a web search for your model , looking for instructions to reset the CMOS . I've been playing around with a couple that were gifted to my son , one we got to work , the other has an apparently dead MOBO . I've also been playing around with our "Eldest of Computers" , and old HP that takes forever to boot , and quite often can't find the OS . I suspect a dying CMOS battery , but really don't care since it's been replaced with a much faster dual-core unit . Let us know the outcome ! I'm always on the lookout for stuff I can revive ...

I pulled my three USB hard disks off and the machine booted. its trying to install windows now. So things are a bit better.

I've put three power supplies in this damn 'puter in less than a year. I've never replaced a power supply anyplace else. Is this the trouble again?

Karl

Do your USB disks have their own power supplies, or do you have them attached via a powered hub? Three disks is rather a lot to try to power via USB.

yes, they each have a walwart type power supply.

Say, I seen some kind of USB error scroll by, once. Now I got windows re-installed and its splash screen hides everything. I thought I heard about a way to kill this screen so you got a chance to read startup messages.

Do you have the specs for the installed HD? You used to have to put that in as part of the setup....watch it! I'm showing my age. Most newer OS's can find this info for itself if the hardware is also pretty new....last few years. You didn't say how old the hardware was or the OS you're trying to reinstall.

One other thing. How many years have you had the system? Sometimes these difficult times can come about just from the memory backup battery going dead.

You could just shoot it and bury it. All of us have felt like doing that a few times! ;-)

Hope you get it fixed without a lot of trouble. Seriously, keep a cool head, maybe even let it rest over night while you and it cool off! :-)

What wattage PS are you installing? You may want to go to one a bit higher rated. If it's rated high enough you may want to put it on a UPS as it could be getting a surge.

The system may have just looked for and not located one of the drives you disconnected. I wouldn't worry too much about that error message just yet.

As you found out, don't have a bunch of other drives plugged in. Your bios was trying to boot off of everything it found.

Wes

Best to leave extraneous devices like those USB drives disconnected during OS installs and add them back later after the OS is in and determined to be stable.

Error messages are stored in system (event) logs so that the informed tech can learn later what was failing - even before it causes a system problem. You are the tech. Therefore you must collect facts before trying to fix something. System logs are one place to start.

Once the system is up, what does Device Manager report both before and after each USB device is connected?

Your problem started when you tried to fix something before learning what was wrong. That strategy often exponentially complicates the problem - as you now know. Never fix things without first collecting facts. Shotgunning =96 fixing something without knowing why - is not recommended anywhere; not just on computers.

Three power supplies? The market is full of power supplies that are missing essential functions - marketed to computer assemblers who have no electrical knowledge. Those supplies hype big watts as if that foolishness means a more robust supply. A supply marketed only on dollars and watts will tend to fail more often because of who it is being marketed to.

If the hard drive doesn't respond, it waits a LONG time. it can sometimes be 20 minutes. This can occur after a disk wipe, partition table change, hard drive swap to different make/model. So, give it 20 minutes or so, and the setup screen may suddenly pop up. Check your CMOS battery. If it is dead, the CMOS settings will be lost when you power off, including the disk drive parameters.

Jon

Error messages are stored in system (event) logs so that the informed tech can learn later what was failing - even before it causes a system problem. You are the tech. Therefore you must collect facts before trying to fix something. System logs are one place to start.

Once the system is up, what does Device Manager report both before and after each USB device is connected?

Your problem started when you tried to fix something before learning what was wrong. That strategy often exponentially complicates the problem - as you now know. Never fix things without first collecting facts. Shotgunning ? fixing something without knowing why - is not recommended anywhere; not just on computers.

Three power supplies? The market is full of power supplies that are missing essential functions - marketed to computer assemblers who have no electrical knowledge. Those supplies hype big watts as if that foolishness means a more robust supply. A supply marketed only on dollars and watts will tend to fail more often because of who it is being marketed to.

Don't you love the 500 watters that weigh 6 ounces?

A power supply tester is a good

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:39:10 -0600, the infamous "Karl Townsend" scrawled the following:

I used to tell people whose cars had died to simply R&R the radiator cap, replace car.

For computers, always keep a current backup. When something fails, replace the computer. It'll cost you about the same as having someone troubleshoot it for you and replace one item.

Become friends with a local computer builder and order new ones every couple years, before they die.

-- The only difference between a rut and a grave...is in their dimensions. -- Ellen Glasglow

You got the right idea in this case. I'm getting another. Not worth the trouble.

karl