The system worked fine yesterday. There was a local power outage this morning. When attempting to start the system today, first it seemed to boot okay except the mouse cursor was frozen. Upon reboot, nothing happened except for some noise suggesting that the CD player was being toggled (therefore these is at least SOME power coming from the power supply, and the lights on the front of the PC come on). There were no error beeps whatsoever, nor did anything (including error codes) get reported to the monitor (black screen); the monitor reports that it's receiving no signal. Booting with the boot disk in drive A doesn't work (in fact, the light on the drive doesn't even come on). Disconnecting all external USB peripherals has no effect. What's the likely problem? Could it be that the A Drive was fried by a power surge? Any other ideas? Thanks for any help. Mardi (new A+ Tech)

Was the computer on when the power outage occurred?

Are you sure the noise is coming from the CD drive and not the hard drive?

It seems more likely the hard drive or the power supply was damaged by the power outage and the subsequent surge when power was restored.........

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

No, the computer wasn't on at the time of the outage. And if a power surge occurred, two other computers in the house were unaffected. I just double-checked the sounds on startup: when the power is turned on, there is a whirring (no doubt the hard drive starting up) and the lights on the CD drive blink. The light on the A Drive does not light up, even though the boot disk is in it. Then everything goes quiet and nothing ever appears on the monitor, nor are there any beeps of any duration. What's confusing is that the system did initially boot up this morning, and everything seemed fine except for the frozen mouse (in other words, Win98 launched, etc.).

Ok....I guess this system is no longer under warranty.

If so open the case and first check all the connections, the pull the cable from the floppy drive (disconnect the power cord from the wall outlet), power up and see if it will boot to the hard drive. If that doesn't work reconnect the floppy and repeat the procedure except with the hard drive cable...



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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

You're correct, no warranty. FYI: system is a five-year-old Pentium 233, thus it could have been near death anyway. I will try your suggestions and report back (probably tomorrow). In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to help! Mardi

Okay, here's the current situation.

It's not the video card. I substituted a known working card in another slot. Still won't boot.

It's not the modem (I took it out).

It's not the monitor, keyboard or mouse (I'm using different ones).

It's not the hard drive. I removed the cable.

It's not the A drive. I tried booting with no A drive, same problem. I tried substituting a known working A drive, same problem.

Any ideas? As I said above, what's confusing is that on the first boot after the power outage, Windows came up and everything appeared to be okay except the mouse cursor was frozen. After rebooting to attempt to clear that problem, nothing. No beeps, no video, nothing. However, there is at least SOME power because the fan comes on and the hard drive can be heard to spin.

Thanks for any help.

Mardi http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/mad.gif

well, about the only thing that you haven't checked is the power supply. If it is getting some power then the supply may not be totally dead, but computer power supplies, suplly several different voltages so one can go and theings like fans can still power up.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

MardiM2,

Don't know if it would be a contributing factor...but since your system is nigh unto 5 years old...I would seriously consider replacing the MB battery as at least a matter of routine maintenance. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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May all your dealings in life be win/win!


Whyzman
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Reserved for Punishing Humor...A Pessimist's blood is always B-negative!

Thanks for the suggestion! Mardi