I have a three year old Compaq, that, in the last 2 days has started to act up. When I turn it on, I get the wonderful Compaq menu (The one where you have ESC, F1 for Settings, and F10 for a system restore), well, it will go from that screen, which is normal for booting up, to a blank black screen with a flashing curser, like in old DOS. Then, it stops. My only option is to turn off the computer, which I can do by hitting ctrl, alt, del, and will restart the comp. After a few reboots, it eventually starts up, and computer is ready to use.
My question, what the heck is going on and how can I stop this! It just started and is quite annoying. Took me half an hour today just to get my comp to come on and stay on.
2007-09-02 11:38:37 · 7 answers · asked by jessica b 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
XP is the OS. I have checked all the connections inside, and out. And find it funny that, my comp has been hooked up for so long, with no probs, and not even moved, then, two days ago, this happens.
2007-09-02 16:02:51 · update #1
While most of these answers are things to check, there is something else that everyone has missed. It is a common problem on computers that are a couple years old. There is a battery on the mainboard that leaves enough power on the board to save your system settings. I have seen this happen many times and the computer will not boot because the system can't find the hard drive. I would start by replacing the battery and setting the bios. This should take care of your problem.
Hope this helps
2007-09-09 10:43:17 · answer #1 · answered by dcs997 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First, the person telling you it is a memory problem with speed is out to lunch. Your machine has not changed since it was built and all of the hardware was designed at that time to work together. Second, what operating system? It sounds from what you describe the hard disk is not reliable or you need to run scandisk to fix any errors you might have. It could be something like a loose connection also. It is impossible to troubleshoot an intermittent problem. When it fails completely, THEN you can find out exactly what is wrong. In the meantime, be sure to run scandisk to insure your hard disk does not have any file or directory problems.
2007-09-02 19:14:36 · answer #2 · answered by rowlfe 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Check the startup devices in your BIOS, it may be looking for other devices before booting from the Hard Disk. Make your hard disk as the first boot device.
Alternatively, also, check if u have a floppy/usb drive/cd put inside the drives/slots. Pull them out and check if u can reboot faster now.
2007-09-10 01:55:03 · answer #3 · answered by Shib 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That used to happen to mine. So I would turn on the comp and then make some tea. Worked fine for me for years.
I needed more memory. Now I still make tea after I turn on the comp but the comp starts right up.
2007-09-10 17:10:24 · answer #4 · answered by Deena 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
this probably comes from the fact that your computer is 3 years old, so you would need to buy new RAM because after a while the cache becomes worn out and the speed is slower and your computer might not recognize it
2007-09-02 18:45:53 · answer #5 · answered by im brutall 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first off do not turn the computer off too much, and second its your POST logging, which you change in the bios at the very beginning when you can press F2 to enter setup.
just get into the system setup and go to keyboard error logging and disable it, and or your POST logging.
I personally never shut down my system, i just let it go into sleep mode you may wan to do that instead, and good luck!
2007-09-02 18:47:21 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Boot sector of your hard drive could be acting up. Better start backing up your files just in case HDD suddenly dies on you.
2007-09-07 10:07:38 · answer #7 · answered by Karz 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋