Adam_B
Member
Registered: 13th Dec 00
Location: Lancashire
User status: Offline
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On my PC the bit where the power cable goes into popped and some smoke came out the other night, so i replaced that and plugged everything back in but now it wont boot up properly.
It loads up as normal but then just as its about to go to the desktop it flashes up a blue screen for half a second then restarts and tells me windows (XP) failed to start etc
Ive put got it to pick up the xp disc in the drive and that takes me to some options of either repairing windows or set up windows, when i do either of these options it tells me it I dont have a hard drive. If i go into the BIOS menu it shows up the hard drive and the floppy and dvd drives. The hard drive is only about 2 weeks old as the old one died if it makes a difference.
Anyone have any ideas please?
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Cosmo
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
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Sounds like you could of fried something when it went pop.
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Sam
Moderator Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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The memory (RAM) is probably fucked.
To test it, download (on another PC obviously) and burn the Ultimate Boot CD from http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ to a CD-R.
Next, make sure that in your PC's BIOS you set the CD drive as the first boot device if you haven't already done so, and then boot from the UBCD.
You will need to run a program called MEMTEST86, I think it's in the Mainboard Tools menu.
This will test your RAM and confirm whether your RAM is dead or not (if you have more than one RAM stick on your motherboard you should test one at a time to find out which one(s) are faulty).
If the test does confirm the RAM is dead, some companies like Corsair memory offer a lifetime warranty so you can have it replaced for free (I did this recently).
[Edited on 27-11-2009 by Sam]
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Adam_B
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Registered: 13th Dec 00
Location: Lancashire
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cheers Sam, will give it a go
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Adam_B
Member
Registered: 13th Dec 00
Location: Lancashire
User status: Offline
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Ok so i thought an easier way to test the ram would be to just pop a stick out of this computer and stick it in mine Anyway, its still doing the same thing so its not that
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Sam
Moderator Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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Faulty RAM will still (kind of) work that's why you need to test it properly as per my suggestion. It may not throw an error when you boot your PC but trust me it may still be faulty!
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