<p>hey i am having a problem w/ my compaq in which the computer lags in the booting process. the monitor remains in standby, and sometimes it will randomly kick out of this stage and load up normally,(to a fully functioning desktop), the only problem is getting there, b/c right now it is currently in that lagging stage (as it has been for the last few hrs) and i need to get to the desktop...</p>
<p>i did some searching and found ppl w/ simliar problems but wanted to post here in hopes of finding a solution that will work for me</p>
<p>heres a site with a simlar problem....
<a href="http://www.techspot.com/vb/archive/index/t-8953.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.techspot.com/vb/archive/index/t-8953.html</a></p>
<p>NE HELP WOULD BE GREAT THANKS!!!</p>
<p>do you get an id10t error while booting?</p>
<p>The booting problem may be an issue with your power supply. How old is your computer?</p>
<p>Your post didn't mention your computer's configuration. Have you added new hard drives/optical drives/pc cards? Do you have some USB devices hanging off your computer? Some USB devices take power from your computer. If you have a lot of USB devices, unplug them. Some new video cards can take a lot of power to run.</p>
<p>When you turn your computer on, place your hand next to the power supply grill at the back of the computer case. See if you can feel air flowing across your hand. No air flow or a weak breeze is a sign that your power supply is bad. Your computer doesn't have enough power to boot up consistently. </p>
<p>If you can, unplug your computer. Open up your case, and unplug the various power connections that come out of the power supply. The supply itself is held in with four screws. The only tricky part is unplugging the power connectors to the motherboard.</p>
<p>If you don't want to mess with this, take it to a computer store and ask the tech to test the power supply. A new power supply isn't very expensive...</p>
<p>Same thing happened to my parents compaq presario (5000 series or something). Had to format the hard drive to fix it. It had nothing to do with the power supply, something just got messed up on the hard drive. Soon after this we started having problems with the motherboard though, so it could be related to that.. but a format solved the problem. its a compcrap thing.</p>
<p>yea i was considering reformating, but the problem is i need to be able to get acess everything on it , so that i can backup certain documents, files. etc. before i reformat..... ne ideia on getting to the desktop one last time beforei format?.... btw i have presario 5000, win 98, have made a ram upgrade,
and thats it , it came standard w/ 2 cd drives, floppy, no video card upgrades either.</p>
<p>michuncle, i doubt its the power suply, tha fan is running.</p>
<p>thanks for the help guys! and plz keep it coming</p>
<p>Windows 98! Allright... before starting a reformat, go to My Computer and right click on the icon. Click on Properties and select the Tools tab. Click on the "error" check box. </p>
<p>This will scan your hard drive for surface errors. After the scan, click on the defragment box. When this is done, reboot a few times to see if your boot problem is better. These two system checks will give you some idea about the shape of your hard drive. </p>
<p>Now you can do a reformat with your Windows Install cds...</p>
<p>yea i would defintetly try that, but as of right now... the monitor is still and standby, and I don't hear the usual noise of the PC running, the pc just sits there with a green light (to signal power) and another which usually comes on when its busy... it has been doing this for HOURS...</p>
<p>if i could just get to desktop things would be alot better....</p>
<p>yeah.. it soundsl ike you have the same problem my parents had. Same computer model too. Like i said, they had to format it and then it took care of the problem. If you run the scan disk (which they did) it couldnt scan the dissk. They thought their hard drive was shot, so they reformatted it.. and then it was fine.</p>
<p>yea but like i said... i can't run scan disk or nething else from my computer etc. b/c it fails to get past a blank monitor thats on standby, it like the PC is lagging in a POST boot stage</p>
<p>My parents put in a dos boot up disk and ran scan disk from there. it tried to go through.. sector by sector.. and it said they were all corrupt or something like that (i wasnt home for it). so they formatted it and that took care of the problem.</p>
<p>Let's see, green power light on, orange/red hard drive light not on. No floppy drive/cd-rom spin up sounds... Does your computer try to spin up the hard drive at startup? Do you see the HD light up for a few seconds and then go dark? Or does the hard drive not spin up at all?</p>
<p>Did you upgrade your memory recently? It's rare that you would get a bad stick of ram. You might want to remove it and see if your computer will boot up. If your upgrade was done a while ago, it's probably not the problem. </p>
<p>That leaves your hard drive. It maybe on its way out. If you have another pc available, you might want to swap it out to see if it will boot up in the other pc. </p>
<p>Try this: open up the case and disconnect the power plug from your hard drive. Also feel the power supply case to see if it's really hot. Start your pc and see if the monitor displays the BIOS settings. You should hear the computer spinning up the floppy/cd drives.</p>
<p>With the hard drive out of the picture, you should see something on your monitor and hear your other drives spin up. If this happens, it's your hard drive that's the problem.</p>
<p>If you get no video and the other drives do not spin up, it's the power supply or the motherboard. Happy shopping!</p>
<p>I recently accidentally poured water over my laptop. Luckily, it worked out, but my sound now is so low.... I can barely hear anything if though the volume is at the maximum. What can I do to get it fixed? Thanks a lot for your advice!!!</p>
<p>Sleepybunny: If you have a set of earphones that can be plugged into your laptop, plug them in (be sure to turn the volume down first). If the volume is fine through your headset, then the water damaged your speaker's paper cone. If the volume is still low, the water may have damaged your audio circutry...though I doubt it (unless you meant to say "Coke" rather than "water").</p>
<p>Unless you know your way around laptops and how to take them apart, I'd take in for repairs. Until you get the back off and see where the speaker or speakers are located, it's tough to say how difficult it will be to replace them.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Try sticking the harddrive in a friends computer as a slave. Copy anything over that you need and then feel free to format.</p>
<p>thats a good idea otto. how might i go about doing this, and not wreck my friends computer, im not that good inside computers, so could you be a bit more specific with the taking out the hardrive part, also if the friend is running a different OS and different make and model of the computer itself, will ther be problmes?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>How different is the OS? If they are both windows, you should be good (as long as his is the same level or newer as yours...both XP and no problems for sure). I'm sure you could find someone at just about any college who could help you with this but essentially you turn them both off and open them up. Unplug the cables from your harddrive and remove it from the case. Find the little jumper pins and set it to Cable Select (it should say near the pins what position is what). In your friends computer, there should be a ribbon cable going to his harddrive with 2 connectors. His should be on the end and you will plug yours into the middle connector. Then attach the power cable and turn the computer on. It should show up in My Computer with whatever letter is next in line (so like...E: or F:).</p>
<p>If that all works, copy the data you need and reformat. Although if that works, it is possible that the harddrive is NOT your problem.</p>
<p>Before doing any of that...take it down to your university's tech people and see what they can do.</p>
<p>yea i am doubting that the hardrive (in my comp) is causing the problem... but thanks, i will definetly try that</p>
<p>Re: swapping out the hard drive... to another pc</p>
<p>Remove your computer case. Your hard drive is located in a metal "cage" and attached with two screws on either side of that cage. Remove the screws. Remove the power supply connector and the data cable (flat gray ribbon cable). Note that the power connector and the data cable are notched so that they attach into the hard drive in only one way. Look carefully at the hard drive cable connector. You will see two rows of metal pins with one row having a missing pin in the middle. The data cable needs to be re-attached with reference to that missing pin. Be very careful not to bend any of those pins when re-attaching that cable. That would be a bad thing!</p>
<p>Take your hard drive to your friend's computer. Open up his/her case and remove the power connector and data cable from that hard drive and attach it to yours. This will make your drive the primary hard drive. </p>
<p>Ottothecow is correct when he said you can make your drive the "slave" to your friend's "master" hard drive. The problem is that you need to know how to set the jumper at the edge of your hard drive to the "slave" position. Look at the edge of your hard drive. You will see a small number of metal pins next to the ribbon cable connector. You will see a small black "jumper" which bridges two of the metal pins. It will be set to "master" (the primary hard drive in your computer). Before moving that jumper with a needle nose plier, draw a picture of it's exact position!</p>
<p>As a quick way to test your drive, simply unplug your friend's hard drive and substitute yours as the primary drive. You don't need to re-set your jumper for this test. It's alright to let your hard drive dangle loosely while doing this. After turning on the computer, see if it boots up. If it does and you get to the Windows screen, then your hard drive is fine. You may get some errors since your friend's computer probably isn't an exact match to yours. That's OK. You just need to see if your hard drive is really working. </p>
<p>If your hard drive fails to boot up in your friend's machine, you will have to change that jumper position. Note: some drives may have a legend (a diagram) printed on top of the hard drive near those pins. Look for a diagram with a setting for "S". If there is no legend, you'll have to go the hard drive manufacturer's website and search on the model number.</p>
<p>Now, plug in your drive with a free power connector. Your friend's ribbon cable will have a second connector about six inches or so from the end which is plugged into his primary hard drive. You need to carefully twist that cable so as to it plugs into your drive.</p>
<p>Turn on the computer and it should boot up if the connections were made correctly. Go to MY Computer and see if the computer recognizes your hard drive. It doesn't matter if his/her version of Windows is the same as yours. All you need is to be able to read what's on your drive.</p>
<p>Copy the files you need to your friend's hard drive and burn them to a blank cd. With your hard drive still plugged in, you can format your drive on your friend's machine.</p>
<p>wow i am seeing there is a large importance on the position of these jumpers metal pins.... i will definetly read up on this or seek technician assitance before touching nething ... thanks ALOT for the help guys!</p>
<p>oh btw right now the OS switch is most likely going to my compaq running Windows 98, to a dell running XP</p>