Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I know something is worry and I will probably have to replace some part of it (thats why I got a partial refund from the guy I bought it from). I just dont know what part of it that I have to replace. With that said, what would be the symptoms if the motherboard or the processor was bad. Thanks again for the help.
Did it ever boot?
Quote:
Originally Posted by majik73
Yesterday I powered on my Compaq Evo N610c and it went to the compaq logo screen where I went into bios by pressing f10. When I was in bios it locked up so I hard booted the system by pressing and holding the power button. When I tried to restart the system nothing showed up on the screen (it was completely black) but the lights on the front showed that there was hard drive activity. After several reboots and retries (about 15 minutes of them) the light for the hard drive stopped showing any activity now (it just lights up for a second then shuts off). The one thing I noticed and it seems strange is if the DVD-rom drive is out but the hard drive is in the light wont flash. It only flashes if the DVD-rom drive is in. I've tried booting it up with both the battery only and the A/C and it both has the same results. I'm at my wits end and hoping that someone here can help me figure out what is wrong. Thanks in advance.
You need to step back and breathe...
The reason why you are having issues when the DVD drive wasn't in was because they usually set the bios to load from the dvd, then the hard drive.
If you still have parts out.. ram, battery for power, take a can of air & blow it out. Depending on how many sticks of ram you have, you might want to only try 1 to start.
Next, when booting make sure the bios is set to boot right. If there is nothing on the hard drive, now's a good time to have the windows CD or the quick restore CD in to reformat the hard drive.
If you tell us more we can give better help.
btw, I've never had Compaq tell me something was out of warrenty with the chat or email support. They've always answered my questions.
I just want to say thanks to all that helped. I found out what the problem was. I believe when I hard booted the PC when I was in bios it corrupted it somehow. I bought I motherboard diagnostic POST card and that actually reset bios back to what it was designed to do. Now everything is running smoothly again. Thanks again.
I just want to say thanks to all that helped. I found out what the problem was. I believe when I hard booted the PC when I was in bios it corrupted it somehow. I bought I motherboard diagnostic POST card and that actually reset bios back to what it was designed to do. Now everything is running smoothly again. Thanks again.
Thanks, Arcticthaw for the website with the service manual. I used it to follow RoaminRed's suggestion. I gained access to the RAM sticks. My system had (2) 256 MB sticks. I was able to pull and swap and discovered I had a bad stick. Can't get it to boot to Windows, but got it to come up to bios by pressing F10. Now, it only shows a dash when trying to boot. At least I am making progress thanks to this site.
This is a different laptop and a new post right?
Dowload the PDF version of the manual and read through it, I found a decent troubleshooting guide. I suspect either the bios is not seeing the hard drive a file may be corrupt. In bios, under advanced menu there is a line called Fast boot or quick boot. Disable this featue, exit saving changes and reboot. On reboot you should have more boot testing done, and hopfully see the hard drive being recognized by the bios, usually with the size of the drive telling you it sees it. Then check boot order to be sure the hdd is on the boot list. Make the proper changes and then save and reboot. Let the optical drive be first boot device with hdd next, unless you have a floppy dirve. If you get to this point and do see the hdd, then try a windows disk to see if it can find your hdd and possibly repair the startup files. go slow and not do this when tired. All data could be lost if you try a format. You can always back out with F3 in windows if you get uncomfortable.
i have been having a similar problem with this system. It would pass thru post, but reboot as soon as ANY boot option was started (that means normal windows xp pro boot, safe mode boot, boot from ubuntu live cd, boot from freebsie live cd). I went into the bios and disabled the SPEEDSTEP function under advanced, and then under boot options. the system boots properly now (freebsie live cd tested and then booted into winxp pro too).
the computer runs properly now, but is a bit sluggish. I have 512mb of ram (two sticks of 256mb) and think this might be the cause of the sluggishness.
i have been having a similar problem with this system. It would pass thru post, but reboot as soon as ANY boot option was started (that means normal windows xp pro boot, safe mode boot, boot from ubuntu live cd, boot from freebsie live cd). I went into the bios and disabled the SPEEDSTEP function under advanced, and then under boot options. the system boots properly now (freebsie live cd tested and then booted into winxp pro too).
the computer runs properly now, but is a bit sluggish. I have 512mb of ram (two sticks of 256mb) and think this might be the cause of the sluggishness.
ported
I suggest starting a new thread. The regular posters find someone adding to an old thread to be, well, irritating. Do a copy/paste to a new thread. Give more info (make, model, etc)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Compaq Evo N610C won't boot
