I had a strange thing happen to the old rig. It booted normally and entered desktop, the AVG refreshed itself automatically, but then i tried to enter internet explorer and nothing happened. I waited a minute or so (sometimes it's sleepy in the morning) and clicked it again but still nothing. I checked the system moniter and it showed 1% of CPU usage. I tried to use the start menu to restart but it wouldn't open, so i used the reset button. When it tried to boot again, it had a message saying "copying BIOS image (or shadow, i dunno) from hard drive" and refreshed the screen with endless lines of dots. I waited about 15 minutes before i got impatient and, stupidly, pressed reset again. And now it's buggered! The moniter is recieving nothing from the computer.

What have i done?! And, more importantly, how can i fix it? The computer in question is my only steady access to the internet. I'd like to think i can live without it, but denial and fevered rantings are some of my withdrawal symptoms. Any help or advice is very muchly appreciated.

If you have a system restore disk, you may want to be ready to use it. Have you tried pressing whichever Fkey will get you into your system? If it won't let you, then you may have to restore the system to fix it. If it will, check for anything that may be turned off that shouldn't be.

How far into the boot process does it get? (whats on the screen?)

No boot process at all. The screen stays on long enough to tell me there's no signal and then switches to standby.

I may have a restore disk somewhere (Geez! You're askin' the hard questions here!) but doesn't the computer need at least one leg to stand on before a restore disk will do any good? Is it "one disk fits all"? ie. Will a restore disk for my new rig work on the old?

Allright, how comfortable are you with opening your case and playing around with a few things?

[ 05-03-2006, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: Hivetyrant ]

Another option to help with diagnosis might be boot codes which will save you actually having to fiddle with anything - can you hear the PC speaker making any noises? Or when you take off the case can you see a little LCD display with some numbers on it? Check your motherboard manual to see what they mean.

Either of those can be used to diagnose the problem.

[ 05-03-2006, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Ooh, OOH! :D

I'd prefer it if i never had to open it at all (being lazy 'n all) but i've no qualms about it.

What am i lookin for?

First thing I do when the proverbial $hit hits the fan, is reset my BIOS settings, if you are unsure of how to do this with the motherboard (most motherboards have jumper settings to clear the CMOS) then you can do it the old fashion way....

Find the battery on the motherboard, pull er' out and then unplug the power cable from the back of the pc....
Try and turn it on...

Depending on your system, this will have various effects, though it should wipe all savings that are kept in static memory.

so now you can plug it back in and see if it runs at all....

No noises or numbers (that i can see, where exactly should i look for them?)

Sounds extreme. What will if it mean if it don't go? (What will it have achieved if it does go?)