My computer is dead... virus?

Albert Cuandero · Mon 04/10/2004 13:12:01

Can anyone help me, please - I am really desparate!

since I tried to restart windows yesterday evening my computer (the home one, not the office one I am writing from now - just to be sure I don't get that kind of replies

...) blacked out and won't even start BIOS.

It activates the DVD, the HDD, the CPU (cpu fan running) and the RAM (RAM-LED on MB is on) but, it does not activate the graphic chip (onboard) at all. So it just stands there, running all fans and the Power LED on, but nothing much happens...

I will install a new graphic card today, but does anyone have a clue what happened? I heard from someone there are viruses that can cause this, but then I have a quite good protection...

Ideas? Thanks in advance!

Blade · Mon 04/10/2004 13:39:06

Maybe it's mechanical.

Barbarian · Mon 04/10/2004 14:15:53

Did you have your important files backed up? If your hard-drive boot files or FAT is messed up,Ã,Â you may need to reformat and reinstall.Ã,Â What Windows version were you running? (At least I assume you were running Windows?)Ã,Â If it was like Win 2000 or XP, You could try popping the Windows CD into the CD drive and see if you can get to the recovery console, then attempt a system restore, or rebuild boot files or perhaps enough funcntionality to back up files or some such.

Or, since you mention it was a home computer (Desktop?), you could... Get a brand new hard drive. Disconnect your old hard-drive tempoarily. Install new hard drive, setting the jumper pins on it as the Master Hard Drive. Format and Install Windows on the new hard drive. Once that is done, then set the jumper pins on the old hard drive to "Slave" setting (Jumper pin setting are usually printed on a label on the hard drive itself), then reconnet to the Hard-Drive ribbon. Now if all goes well, when it boots up, your new hard drive will boot up as master, and then it should see you old drive as the slave. Then once windows loads in, you can copy over any important files from the old drive over to your new drive.

But, if you're not even able to get into BIOS, then, it's possible something else is the culprit. I guess in such case best to seek out some professional advice at a computer repiar center near you.

Phemar · Mon 04/10/2004 15:02:50

OMS that's exactly what happened to me last year. I had an old LunchBox pc (does anyone remember those old things?) and one day it just started up but the screen stayed black.
My graphics card was stuffed and that was what was causing the problem.
Unfortunately parts for my old Lunchbox are pretty hard to get hold of, so it never got fixed.

I'm not complaining though because after that, (well I had to wait 6 months first hehe) my dad gave me his laptop. Lucky me.

I hope that is just your graphics card and nothing on your harddrive, and that you're able to retrieve your data.
I just plugged my old drive into a different pc and copied the files across teh lan.

Hope everything works fine for you, Al.

Barbarian · Mon 04/10/2004 15:45:27

Yes, it could very well be a hardware failure of some kind.
Here's a question, when your computer starts up, do you hear any internal "Beep" sounds? If so, that could be a clue of to what's wrong. Depending on the type of motherboard and/or BIOS, the type/number of beeps can indicate what type of problem you're having. For example, here's a webpage with various "BIOS Beep Codes" for some common BIOS:
http://www.amptron.com/html/bios.beepcodes.html

Albert Cuandero · Fri 08/10/2004 07:43:37

Thank you for your replies, but however it all didn't help.

I had to buy a new motherboard and I also got an CPU and VGA Card while I was at it - so now I am reinstalling the whole stuff. :o

My HDD also took fatal damage (it was all caused by a power surge problem - a lightning struck near us) it also damaged the TV, the phone, the AC, the elevator (they work but with apparent currency problems), even some lights are blinking since then...

Well whatever - I lost a lot of data, so my games schedule will have to be moved for 2-3 weeks to the late side.

This happens if you don't follow the old man's advice kids: "Save often, save early!"

Blade · Fri 08/10/2004 17:39:15

That's tragic, really. But I love that Al Lowe's saying

darkx5 · Sat 09/10/2004 16:55:57

1 eject all disks CD,DVD,Floppy...

2 repalce your graphix card...

3 now insert your original startup disk (make shure your pc is off

4 ReFromat from factory condition
you loose everything but at least it works

now becarefull for what you install and use on your system and make shre to make a back up on a rewriteable cd or something....