[Maviarab]

Well not like me to ask about computers hehe but got a baffling problem.

Mums PC (mine fine of course lol)...

XP decided to unactivate itself (she has original disc etc)....then forgot to tell me, so time limit came and went....couldnt log in. Used the safe mode/narrator back door fix and got in, saved some docs and thought id do a reinstall (really could not be bothered ringing MS).

Installed XP...installed mobo drivers...installed gfx drivers...started installing MS updates...got to SP2 and crash. Refused to boot.

Did all above again...got to SP3 this time.....crash...refused to boot.

Repaired windows, repaired Boot.cfg and repaired mbr....refused to even go to bios after that.

Thought fair enough, ill install my XP SP3 disc...installs fine...install mobo drivers...great...install gfx drivers...crash. Stuck in boot loop. then get new bsod (The Bios in this sytem is not fully acpi compliant)

Disabled apm and legacy usb drivers in bios...starts to boot up...windows loads...bsod...boot loop again.

Reboot PC again...this time with cdrom as first boot...I then get (loading FreeDOS FAT KERNAL GO!)

Hmmm ok...never seent hat one before ( and since, if you ask, no i have never tried to install FreeDOS lol)...do some googling and see that its usually caused by a corrupt bios and cmos needs resetting.

OK then...power down, remove power cable, remove cmos batty and move jumper accross. Had to then go gf from work...so approx an hour later...move jumper back....put batty back in, pwer cable attached...and nothing. PC is abolutly dead. Wont even switch on.

Any ideas?

[one]

Mav,
".I then get (loading FreeDOS FAT KERNAL GO!)"
Umm, I cant make sense of it . I would be scared it was bios virus.
open comp and look at fans if they bump even just a little the video
or HDD are the first things I would look at after that PSU.
If the fans do bump a little then It has been my experience the video went out the 2 times this has happened to me.

Do you know you can do a 'repair install' if you have disk?
yep its true

J.

[Maviarab]

One, as enlightening as that reply was...

It will 'NOT' even switch on now...nothing...nadda...goosed...dead....deceased....the pc has ceased to exist...

So yes...a repair might be squiffy....if the damn thing switched on. I knpow what casued the strange error msg....I already stated that thanks, what I need right now is some constructive answers that I have not already thought of.

For any others.

Have changed cmos batty over...no change...have unplugged everything (save psu to mobo) and still dead.

Will be swapping over psu tomorrow from my spare machien to test this, but psu has given no indication of being faulty or about to die. Also, RAM has been checked and is fine.

Thanks.

[Art]

Mav,

Power Supply = OK?

MoBo = CPU fan OK?

Possibly a fubar'd CMOS

When you first checked for virii (viruses) did you do an FDISK / MBR?

If you're getting nothing at all and you're sure the PS is working / outputting proper voltage then
I'd guess the GPU , CPU or MoBo.

If you've a spare MoBo lying around connect it and see.

Obviously, I'm sure you've checked ALL the cables and power cords.

What's weird is the way it seemed to slowly die each time indicating a different symptom. Sorry I can't offer anything more helpful.

[Freddy]

Sorry, this is beyond me.

[Data]

If XP decided to un-activate itself then to me that is the hint as to your problem.

Windows decided that the motherboard had been changed and un-activate its self.

Obliviously you hadn’t changed the motherboard so something has failed or was failing on it. Or the BIOS has become corrupted.

Disconnect all drives, remove any cards, i.e sound cards or what ever, try to get it to boot on minimal hardware and try to flash the bios to the latest version. Obliviously you will have to have one drive to flash the BIOS.

If you cant boot it at all then it points to the motherboard being at fault, saying that bad memory could cause the same type of errors.

Hope this helps.

[Art]

Datahopa,

Doesn't XP deactivate if two or more major components are swapped or replaced?

That being said, it still doesn't explain why it seemed to exhibit more and more advanced
stages of "decay" with each shutdown.

I had a similar experience many, many years ago when a rather clever virus made its way into
my system. (I also think that's when Norton and I parted company as well).

We're all curious with this one!

[Data]

Art:

In my experience, im not trying to brag, I just work with and up-grade/repair quite a lot of windows based PC’s, its only changing the motherboard that requires windows activation. Well apart from a windows install.

I have changed CPU’s, RAM, graphics cards, sound cards, added card readers, more hard drives, TV cards and probably more components than I can remember but I have only had to reactivate after a motherboard change.

My girlfriends computer has had a lot of up-grades, when I find a spare component on my travels and it’s better than what she already has I magically make it disappear and donate it to her  and so far no reactivation has been needed.

You could well be right though, maybe it is two major components that trigger the activation, it’s not something that I have really looked in to. But aren’t the major components on the motherboard and all the other bits just up-grades. It’s a good point 

Back to the problem:
Components do fail and I have seen some systems slowly get worse with every boot as the failure cascades (for want of a better word).

The best way to check IMO is to remove all drives and cards from the system and turn on the PC with minimal hardware, then does it boot?

If no then try another power supply

If it just bleeps at you, count the bleeps and check the error code for that motherboard.

If no bleeps, no boot, and you know the power supply is good then it’s probably a dead motherboard.

If the system boots with no drives or cards in, slowly put them back, one at a time until you find the one that is causing the PC not to boot.

Not that long ago I had a PC that had a similar fault to this it turned out to be dying capacitors on the motherboard, it was screwing the voltages making some components work and others were out of their voltage range and stopped working then with every boot, when the voltage surges the problem got worse and worse until the motherboard refused to boot and ended up in the skip.

[Art]

http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2F2009%2Fs2010%2F32s10%2F32s10.asp

[Maviarab]

Well the bios was screwed.....

Got it restarted and my gfx issues it seems were down to me installing the nvidia drivers. Seems XP really didnt like that, after uninstalling card/drivers and rebooting, XP found them itself and everything seems to be running fine at last?

Weird lol