Computer stuck at boot screen....suggestions?

[Furryappleseed]

Well, my brothers went off to college few days ago and now one of them is having problems with the computer I set up for him. Its an oldish Acer with Athlon 3500. He purchaed wifi adapter and soon as he inserts cd to install the computer freezes. He goes to restart and now the computer is hanging on the boot screen. It has Windows XP Pro.

Things I have tried to tell him:
Remove ram stick and reinstall. (nothing)
Change ram slot. (error beeps on any slot other than one)
Make sure everything is plugged in completely...hdd, mb power, ram (nothing)
Repeatedly press del and f12 when it is starting to try and get some response from the thing. (nothing)

I'm all out of ideas. He is in Tallahassee and I am in Daytona so I can't physically be there which is the frustrating part. Computer was working fine before that cd. It has always been a weird computer but has always worked. Funny how windows reports 768MB, but the computer has only one stick...

All suggestions appreciated.

[juneau]

Ask him to disconnect the DVD drive and see if it boots then. If so try a different Sata/IDE cable.

[Savage_Hobo]

So he can't F12 into another boot device, can he get into the BIOS (Usually F2 or ESC) and take a look around? Boot order, Device Stats....

[MRDEATH[GoD]Gen]

you said [He purchaed wifi adapter ] Does he have it pluged in?If so,take it out and see if it boots up.If it boots,then maybe the usb port hes trying to use is bad...try another.

[Furryappleseed]

Thx for the replies. Well, he never got to the wifi adapter since they have you do the software before installing and no he cant get into bios. It freezes on boot splash where it says "acer" then has the del=bios stuff at the bottom right.

Seems as though he has broken the thing now...lol. I called him to see if the disconnect of the disk drive would work but now he is saying the system doesn't even power on. Guess he tried his own troubleshooting = not good. I don' know if he has fried something or what...i told him to touch the metal on the case to try and ground himself (does that actually work?). Hopefully its just the outlet that he blew because both of them don't work.

Looks like I will be building a quick 200 comp for him in the near future.

[juneau]

Doesn't power on?! All this from not reading a disc is odd to say the least. PSU/Power cable checking time.

[Savage_Hobo]

Sounds like a motherboard or bios issues... a hard drive issue shouldn't be able to mess up the bios... I've seen a lot of ACER's with bad boards... you might want to check if it's still under warranty.

[juneau]

Does the CPU fan and case fans spin?

[Furryappleseed]

When it was powering on the cpu fan was working.I assumed it was the disk because he said when he put it in the computer froze a little then was ok but it didn't autostart. Then he went to My Computer to manually do it and boom...

He has been away so he has not gotten a chance to use different outlets. If it is the psu though...gonna have to scrap that thing.

And this thing has long since out of warranty. I replaced the cpu fan almost two years ago and I know my family had it for some time before that.

[juneau]

When it was powering on the cpu fan was working.I assumed it was the disk because he said when he put it in the computer froze a little then was ok but it didn't autostart. Then he went to My Computer to manually do it and boom...

He has been away so he has not gotten a chance to use different outlets. If it is the psu though...gonna have to scrap that thing.

And this thing has long since out of warranty. I replaced the cpu fan almost two years ago and I know my family had it for some time before that.

If there is not power to any fans when it's switched on then i'd have to say PSU.

[mapes]

If there is not power to any fans when it's switched on then i'd have to say PSU.

Agreed.. and if the fans spin it might be the DVD is choking the sata bus

[homosapien15]

juneau what don't you know? I swear you are an expert in everything...

[juneau]

juneau what don't you know? I swear you are an expert in everything...

Quite a lot actually. But after starting to mess with PC's around the age of 10 i got a little 'hooked'.

[Furryappleseed]

Well, the mystery has been solved. I forgot about the fact that my brother took my MX Revolution mouse at the last moment. When He asked me about the receiver it instantly hit me...

About a year ago that computer was fubar with viruses and malware and would not boot right. I figured I would use Hirens, and put it on a flash drive since I had no cd-r with me. I remembered that when I changed boot sequence to look for flash drives, the computer would not boot with the mouse receiver in it(I took mine with me since they had an awful $2 optical). I meant to change order of boot to cd-hdd-usb when I was finished but never did....and it got me.

Oh and when he tried different outlet it did work. Thanks for all help though

Edit: Woot 100th post.

[Apache Warrior]

Don't you hate when you find out the problem you are tearing your hair out over was caused by yourself?
Apache