I work part–time night shifts in a care home for people that have learning disabilities. A few months ago, someone donated a PC for the use of the house mates. It came with XP pre-loaded and had the usual array of low-level games, which people enjoyed playing. However, due to people not closing-down the PC correctly (I think), the computer has developed a fault in that it does not fully boot into Windows – in fact, it just keeps re-booting! The screen display is hard to describe, but looks a bit like a scrambled array of Boolean – type characters! You can see the POST booting-up phase through this muddle of characters and just make out the loading bar of XP starting, but that’s as far as it goes, as it then re-boots itself to the POST phase and this scenario just keeps repeating itself, over and over. One night I managed to get it to fully boot into Windows and did a system restore to try and get it back to a time when it worked. I've tried "last Known Good Configuration" as well. This was successful until the PC was powered down, but on a fresh boot-up, things were back to square one! I’m thinking that a fresh install of XP might fix things, but nobody seems to know where the disk might be (if indeed, one exists at all?). If there isn’t one, I doubt whether management would shell-out for an XP disk, as the home is run on a strict budget (especially at the moment). Do you think this is purely a software issue, or could it be a fault with the hardware? I was thinking that a free distribution of Linux installed might be an answer, as it would at least give them a PC that has a few low-level games on it (which they loved to play under XP). The PC would not be used for much else, as the cognitive skills of the home mates are quiet limited due to their learning disabilities. Any solutions, thoughts on the problem would be appreciated. Dave.
Welcome back David. Didn't think it would be long till you had another computer problem Only joking with you... Just to clarify, you say that the screen looks muddled at the POST? ie. Before Windows starts to load? If that's the case, I think the computer may be suffering from a hardware failure. How old is the computer and what brand is it?
Hello, Mega. Yes, PC problems again, but this time none of mine, luckily! I'll try to get some more specifics as I'm working tonight. I think the PC is about 4 years old, I'll check the brand out. The screen looks muddled both at POST and before Windows starts to load. When it was first donated (about 4-5 months ago), it worked fine for the first couple of months - no problems! However, due to the dispositon of of the home residents, they did not really grasp the concept that a PC should be closed down properly, and not just turned off! The problems all seemed to stem from them carrying out this practise - whether it's directly related, I don't know. Dave.
no its not related to the system being powered off, cos even 95 ran scandisk after an improper shutdown, to me it does soun like a hardware fault remove and reinsert CPU, RAM, grfx card & PSU and temporarly remove all additional hardware and see if it will boot properly, if it does add additonal harware 1 at a time and try booting after adding each item
Thanks, guys. I'll try those options with the home manager's premission and see if they solve the problem. Dave.
Whoa! Slow down a little, Donkey! The computer boots, so there's no need to remove the CPU, RAM or Power Supply! This is primarily a problem with the graphics card and/or Monitor. DavidWN, try the following: Degauss the Monitor. There should be a button on the monitor itself that does this Check whether the monitor cable is plugged in tight. Check whether the Graphics card is integrated into the motherboard, or is PCI/AGP based. If the latter is true, try removing the graphics card and using the integrated graphics instead.
good point mega i'll bow out gracefully, you could downloading new grfx drivers going into safe mode and remove the grfx driver then reboot XP and install new drivers sorry mega x
An update: Last night at work, I took the cover off the PC after degaussing the monitor and checking to see that the monitor cable was plugged in tight. The motherboard does not have integrated graphics, it has its own independent card, which I checked to see if it was seated properly - it was. There are some strange whirring noises coming from the HD - even more audible when you have the case cover off - they are not exceptionally loud, but just do not sound like a 'healthy' HD (mine own PC's HDs are barely audibly perceptible when working, for instance. The PC has now stopped continually rebooting and just hangs at the XP loading bar phase (still a scrambled mess!) Well, that's all I can really tell you at the moment. Perhaps the HD and/or graphics card are defective? Cheers, Dave - and thanks to you both for your help hitherto.
go into the BIOS and make sure the integrated grafx is disabled (probably under the heading "integrated peripherals" assuming you want to use the grfx card, cos integrated grfx are crap but they drain resorces) and set the amount of shared memory to zero (it mat automatically set shared memory to zero) and download new up to date drivers at home and burn them to a CD, then take the CD to work with you
Thanks, Dave. I'll give it a go. The only trouble is that I can't get into BIOS - well, hardly ever, as there is generally no response when I hit the delete key on boot-up. I think I have only managed it twice on the few occasions over the last couple of months when I've had time to play around with it. I'll have another go tonight, as I'm working. Dave.
i misread your post adout it NOT having integrated grfx but do as i said but theres no need to go into BIOS
