i was putting together a computer with the following , jabil kadoka gateway motherboard, amd thunderbird 750 mhz cpu ,13.6 western digital har drive ,hi-val dvd , 256mb micron ram 133 mhz , s3 savage 32 mb agp card , soundblaster live card , generic 56k modem.
this system start and after the bios screen , appears a black screen with a cursor blinking on it. after that the sandclock from windows appears in tne middle of the black screen and the computer freezes. i have to restar the unit on save mode , sometimes several times for it to work. generaly after this it works ok although sometimes a blue screen apperas saying " unable to write to disk in drive C data or files may be lost " . can anyone help me with this problem ? any help will be appreciated!!!

Leave off the sound card [ie dont install it physically] for sure and see if you get a good boot....sounds like you have an IRQ or possibly a dying hard drive issue. You can possibly resolve the IRQ issule depending on how much flexibility the Gateway mobo has....to determine the status of the hard drive....run a thorough Scan Disk on it.
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Will XP save Me ?

[This message has been edited by Randy_tx (edited 12-10-2001).]

Originally posted by liamkincaid25:
i was putting together a computer with the following , jabil kadoka gateway motherboard, amd thunderbird 750 mhz cpu ,13.6 western digital har drive ,hi-val dvd , 256mb micron ram 133 mhz , s3 savage 32 mb agp card , soundblaster live card , generic 56k modem.
this system start and after the bios screen , appears a black screen with a cursor blinking on it. after that the sandclock from windows appears in tne middle of the black screen and the computer freezes. i have to restar the unit on save mode , sometimes several times for it to work. generaly after this it works ok although sometimes a blue screen apperas saying " unable to write to disk in drive C data or files may be lost " . can anyone help me with this problem ? any help will be appreciated!!! I TOOK OUT THE SOUND CARD AND THE MODEM. THE PROBLEM STILL HAPPENS. NOW THE COMPUTER SHOWS NOTHING ON THE SCREEN .ONLY EMIT BEEPS WHEN BOOTING . THE BEEP SEQUENCE IS AS FOLLOW 2 BEEPS PAUSE 8 BEEPS PAUSE
2 BEEPS PAUSE 1 BEEP . MY BIOS ARE FROM AMI . DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT DOES THIS MEANS? THANK YOU!!!!!!

You may have a memory problem.
When the BIOS screen appears, the memory is normally checked next.
If your screen goes black at this point, then memory is probably bad.

Remove everything except the power supply module, motherboard, CPU, and case speaker.
If you hear beeps, install the memory.
Same Beeps? Go into BIOS at startup and look for an item that says 'Memory Parity/ECC Check'. If it's disabled, then enable it(Your memory may be parity).
Same beeps? Pull one stick of memory(assuming there are multiple sticks).
Same beeps no matter which stick is installed, or have only one stick? Replace the memory.
If you used a single 256MB stick, try 2-128MB sticks.

Different beeps after installing the memory, enabling 'Parity/ECC Check', or removing a memory stick? Install the video card.
Same beeps? Video card is bad.
I doubt this is the problem since the video card is checked before the BIOS screen appears.
But you never know.

"Go into BIOS at startup and look for an item that says 'Memory Parity/ECC Check'. If it's disabled, then enable it(Your memory may be parity)."

Have this bassackwards. It should read "Go into BIOS at startup and look for an item that says 'Memory Parity/ECC Check'. If it's enabled, then disable it(Your memory may be non-parity).