OT: HELP pelase, WinXP

[Zz Yzx]

Sorry for the OT post, but I'm a little desparate.

My daughter did SOMETHING, I don't know what.

Now, on boot-up,her computer just cycles through the motherboard splash screen, then the WinXP splash screen, then the RAID screen, and repeats. And repeats. And repeats. Over and over again.

If I try to boot in Safe Mode, sometimes I get 3 beeps. Other times, it just ignores the Safe Mode and goes through the loop described above. Over and over and over.......

I can't find any reference to the beep codes.

It's a 5-6 yr old Soyo SY-5EMA+ ver. 2 MB.

Any help appreciated.

And thanks a heap,

-Zz

[Josepi]

On the install CD you can boot off that and there are repair utilities that can sometimes fix things for you. If the basic system boots then you know the hardware is good.

My daughter did SOMETHING, I don't know what.

Now, on boot-up,her computer just cycles through the motherboard splash screen, then the WinXP splash screen, then the RAID screen, and repeats. And repeats. And repeats. Over and over again.

If I try to boot in Safe Mode, sometimes I get 3 beeps. Other times, it just ignores the Safe Mode and goes through the loop described above. Over and over and over.......

I can't find any reference to the beep codes.

It's a 5-6 yr old Soyo SY-5EMA+ ver. 2 MB.

Any help appreciated.

And thanks a heap,

-Zz

[dadiOH]

The mobo manual doesn't list the beep codes?

First thing I'd do is go into the BIOS and make sure the hard drive is being recognized. If so, maybe do a "repair" install of XP from the install CD. You won't lose any of your stuff.

[Stephen Quinn]

Open the cover and make sure ALL cards & RAM are seated in their sockets. Disconnect ALL attachments (printer/USB) except video, mouse, keyboard. Try a different mouse, keyboard combo.

Any dust inside - suck it out.

Have you added any new hardware, software?

CYA Steve

[Markem]

If you can get to safe mode,

To keep the puter from rebooting constantly,

Start to Settings

Control Panel

System

Advanced

Startup and Recovery

In the System failure area

uncheck Automatically Restart.

As to what is wrong a change of battery would not be a bad idea as to start. Check all the connections to the MB.

I had a bad memory stick drive me nuts. It rebooted over and over and messed up the hard drive to the point of no return, good luck.

Mark

[J. Clarke]

You mentioned RAID--if there's a RAID controller on board go into the BIOS setup and make sure that the RAID controller is turned on.

Also, 6 years old, see if there's a coin battery on the motherboard--if so try replacing it--it might have died resulting in the machine forgetting its setup--you'll have to redo the setup if that's the problem, and if you didn't write down the original settings then you may have to do some trial and error.

[FrozenNorth]

Also most, if not all RAID controllers have their own BIOS setup, and some have their own battery. Check both, depending on the controller you have.

[clare]

Look at the big capacitors on the motherboard. The tops will all have a Y shaped indentation if the caps are good. If ANY of them are somewhat bulged on the top, the motherboard has failed. A decent tech can replace the bad caps - but usually just as cheap to replace/upgrade the motherboard (and usually re-install windows, or at least the required drivers). Generally can be done without losing any data if you know a little about what you are doing.

[Swingman]

The beep codes are specific to the BIOS, with different BIOS manufacturers having different beep codes.

Do you know how to access the BIOS on your computer, usually a F1 key or similar?

Three short beeps is most often a base RAM fault, or with some BIOS', a key board fault. My guess would be toward the former from your description.

One relatively simple troubleshooting step:

If you can't access the BIOS, or know what to do when you get there, my suggestions would be to remove all the RAM sticks on the motherboard, see if it will boot properly; if it does, replace one, repeat until the fault happens again and that would be your bad memory.

If that doesn't offer a solution, and you don't know your way around a BIOS, then you need some local geek advice at a local computer place.

[Zz Yzx]

Mine have "X" shapes, and two adjacent ones look bulged and heated.

Sadly, not so. It's an older board (I mispoke, it's a Soyo KT600). I'd also have to replace/upgrade RAM, graphics board, and probably HDD (most new boards only support SATA), OS, &tc. I'll check around, but it's an expensive endeavor

I've taught my daughters to store the important stuff (to them, that's

1000's of pics and mp3's) on a separate HD from that w/ the OS, so I can blow it out when I need to.

Thanks for the informative response.

-Zz

[Zz Yzx]

You'd think so, but no. And I can't find them on teh net.

[Zz Yzx]

YEah.... last time, Best Buy wanted to charge me $99.99 to diagnose a HDD that I could by for $59. And she was a bitch about it.

[Scott Lurndal]

It won't boot at all with no "RAM sticks". At least one (and for some systems, two) are minimally required for the BIOS to be able to run.

The BIOS will execute for a short time out of the L1 cache while it configures the DRAM controller(s) and reads the SPD from the DIMMs. Once the DRAM is configured the BIOS will copy itself from flash to DRAM and continue executing from DRAM.

If there is no DRAM, the BIOS will beep, and you'll get no video.

I concur with J. Clark, likely the CMOS battery has failed after 6 years causing the stored BIOS settings to evaporate. The next most likely will be a bad DIMM followed by the Video subsystem.

scott

[Scott Lurndal]

Can't comment on the 'bitch' part, but do you expect them to work for free?

scott

[FrozenNorth]

What part about the OP's post suggests that, he said he saw the BIOS splash screen, the Windows splash screen, then a RAID splash screen. Once the Windows splash screen appears the BIOS is essentially done, it is failing after the RAID splash screen, or during, hard to tell.

He has to check (or have someone else check), the RAID controller, either it's BIOS or battery is corrupt, if it is a RAID fault, or there is a major RAID fault, depending on how all that was initially configured.

Once that is known either good/bad then it becomes a windows issue. MoBo, system bios, and motherboard are all fine.

[dadiOH]

If need be, there are inexpensive adapters to use IDE drives with SATA

[J. Clarke]

Many motherboards today have RAID controllers built into the chipset--they're not necessarily third-party boards--but there is generally a configuration option in the BIOS setup to turn that feature on or off. If it's gotten turned off and the machine is configured to require it in order to boot that would be causing the problem described. Of course the machine may have a third-party RAID controller instead or in addition.

It sounds like the RAID controller Windows driver is trying to load and not finding whatever it expects.

[FrozenNorth]

Absolutely, if a RAID driver is attempting to load, Windows was initially setup to load one. Given the OP said the Mobo was 5 years old, on board raid is less likely, but still a possibility I had overlooked.

We need more info from the OP if he is able to provide it.

[HeyBub]

Go to the microsoft.public.windowsxp.general newsgroup.

Boot-cycling is a fairly common problem.

[DGDevin]

There are lots of outboard enclosures for IDE drives that connect via USB. I like the Vantec NexStar GX as it has a cooling fan and is easy to set up. So once you get your new machine (I just went through this with a top-of-the-line Dell and Dell's grossly overpriced repair parts) you can recover your data with minimal hassle even though your new motherboard will be all-SATA.