all of a sudden when i turn my computer on it starts to boot, it gets to the stage where it says checking nvram. this is ok then it freezes after the boot option comes on
f11 options etc.

I have tried changing the hard drive with an old one that i have but the same thing happens.

I have removed and inserted the ram modules, still no joy

there are no beeps and it just stays frozen at this stage.

i have started the comouter without the hard drive in and the same thing happens.

I have lots of pictures of my daughter who i have recently lost on it, so i am desperate to get them back and are worried the hard drive may be broken

please help me

Welcome to G2G

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter, I understand how important those photos must be to you.

If the system still freezes at the same point regardless of the drive being connected or not, then it's unlikely to be a problem with the drive.

As the drive is of such importance to you, I suggest that maybe you consider connecting it up to another computer & transferring/backing up your photos that way.

At for the broken computer, I want you to try this :

Make sure the external power cord is removed first
Open up the case & disconnect the main ATX power supply cable that connects to the motherboard.

Then remove all the pci cards, leaving only the video card, cpu/heatsink+fan & ram.

Next, disconnect all the drive cabling from the motherboard - ie the hard drive & CD drive ribbon cables & floppy drive cable. Disconnect the power connector from the hard drive as well, but leave the one to the CDROM drive in place

Next, locate the clear cmos jumper :
This should be the jumper nearest to the round 3V lithium battery. Its often marked CLR_CMOS (or similar) or JP1. It will consist of 3 pins in a row, 2 of which will be covered by a small plastic cap (jumper).

The jumper will currently be positioned on pins 1-2. Move the jumper so it covers pins 2-3 instead. Leave in this position for about 30 secs, then replace it to its original position.

Reconnect the ATX power cable to the motherboard, then the external power cord.

Power the system on again & let me know what happens.
If you have any queries regarding these instructions, please ask.

Thanks for your help I will try this tonight after work and will post the reply stating what has happened. Such a relief its not likely to be my hard drive. I will connect it to my friends computer and back the photos up. I was meaning to back them up earlier but I kept on putting it off as it was too upsetting.

i have followed your instructions to the letter.

the same thing happens it freezes at the same stage as before

my motheroard is the following

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets...hbridge/vt8235/

I have also noticed a couple of things when I boot it, the screen says

AMD Athlon ™ , 1250 Mhz
Checking NVRAM ...
524288 KB OK
DRAM Clock = 200 Mhz, SDRAM CAS Latency=2
DEL:Setup F11:Boot Menu F12:Network boot TAB:Logo

This is the point it freezes

My computer is a athlon 2600 Mhz not 1250, does this mean anything?

Also the ram is PC2700 which runs at 333 Mhz, it may be imagining this but I am sure previously when booting it used to say 333MHZ instead of 200Mhz, infact I am positive about this


Also I have a DVD Drive which previously before this freeze it started to malfunction and kept spinning and stopping and spinning again. I was unable to install and play San Andreas. When I turn the computer on I can hear it make this sound twice spinning stopping spinning stopping. Does this mean anything. I tried disconnecting the power and cable to this but it still freezes.

By the way the DVD is the master and the CDRW the slave.

Do you think my motherboard is goosed, displaying incorect info about my processer and ram speed.

I forgot to mention it is a time PC, I know silly move buying one of these. When I first got it it wouldn't turn on and I had to send it back, they said the motherboard was faulty and replaced it. Since then it has worked fine though.

Hope this is enough info for you. Look forward to your reply and thanks for your help.

http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-MicroStar_KT4V

this is my motherboard sorry

Hi
Thanks for the motherboard link. Thats really useful as it means I have been able to obtain the manual for it which makes it easier for me to guide you through the bios/jumper settings.

The reason the cpu is now being reported as 1.2GHz & the ram at 200MHz, is because clearing the cmos resets all the values in the bios back to defaults. This means the cpu clock & FSB are now set to the lowest value possible for that motherboard.

Also, its possible that the reason the system halts at this point is due to the fact that all the drives are disconnected, and therefore there is no boot device available.

Can you confirm for me that you disconnected the drive cabling from the motherboard, as opposed to disconnecting it from the drives themselves only?

Can you also tell me whether the computer beeps once & the keyboard lights flash once, just before it gets stuck at the F11 stage?

If so, can you reconnect the floppy drive back up as normal, insert a boot disk of some description & power the system back on please.

Let me the outcome of this.

Samm

Hi

Thanks again, I thought the settings were different but couldn't be sure.

Yes I did disconnect the cabling from the actual motherboard and not from the drives.

The computer doesn't beep when I switch it on, but the keyboard lights do come on for a second as soon as the power switch is pressed, as for a boot disc, would i be able to boot from a cd or is there somewhere i can download a boot disk or can I buy one from a computer shop.

I also have one of those multi memory card readers under my floppy drive, should this be disconnect?.

There is aother cable which runs from the back of the DVD drive to a slot next to the graphics card, should this be disconnected? it has two wires i think, black and white, what is this?

Gaz

Hi Gaz

Yes, disconnect the card reader as well but don't worry about the lead from the dvd, this is just an audio cable & won't stop the system from booting up.

You can download a boot disk from here :
http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

Make sure you download the win98se disk. When you have downloaded it, insert a new blank floppy disk & double click on the downloaded file. It will create the boot disk automatically for you.

Reconnect up the floppy drive in the sick computer. If you only disconnected the cable from the motherboard & not the floppy drive as well, then this should be straight forward. Most cables are keyed with a notch so they only fit the right way round in the motherboard. If yours isn't keyed however, look at the socket on the mobo - you should see that one end is marked with a '1'. Make sure you insert the floppy cable so that the edge of the cable with the red stripe on, is at the end marked with the '1'.
Then reconnect the power to the floppy drive.

Insert the boot disk & power up the machine.

I have to be honest though, I'm a bit doubtful as to whether it will boot given that the system isn't giving a beep at the end of the post test.

Let me know how you get on

Hi there. Did you make any changes at all to your BIOS before this NVRAM problem started? Or any other system changes, large or small, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you? I'm especially looking for something that might have changed an IRQ designation.

das kriegschwein siebzig drei

Hi Samm and Warhog sorry for the delay in replying as I have been on holiday.

First of all in reply to Samm, nothing happened when I tried a boot disc, my friend who knows a little said it sounds like my motherboard, do you agree?

In rely to warhog, I dont think I changed anythng and I def didn't alter any bios settings.

Sorry for the delay in response.


Millsy

No worries about the delay, hope you had a nice holiday!

Just to recap, can you tell me exactly what is connected to the motherboard at the moment? ie, floppy drive/hard drives/cdroms/card reader etc

Also, is your cpu still being reported as 1.2GHz?

What other pci cards do you have in the computer?

My sincerest apologies; I was under a dark spell for many moons but fought my way back to the Lands of the Living and am replying, too late no doubt, but I have to try. I guess this post is long dead, but just in case it can benefit someone in the future: you probably (almost certainly) had a bad PCU (power unit.) I wasted your time asking about the BIOS; don't know where my head was with that one. It doesn't take much of an alteration in the juice to the Motherboard to cause any or all of the symptoms mentioned, and a PCU can hang on like that for a long time, driving you to fury. It's about the last thing folks suspect, or want to suspect, even though it's really pretty easy to deal with. I hope that you didn't toss your Momboard. Best wishes.

me.