I want to help you troubleshoot your problems....

[fstroupe]

But who's going to help me troubleshoot mine? Once again, an example of head-up-the-ass troubleshooting.

Last week, I swapped processor, video card and PSU on my grandson's rig. (X2 4400, 7600GT, and 800 watt psu) Everything worked fine. He had been planning a clean install of XP, so we did it the same day. For some reason it was a real PITA, but I won't go into that. This was last Monday.

Yesterday, he was out somewhere, my nephew turned the computer on. It froze up during posting, right after finding the processor.

I have a problem keeping my cool...especially having to stop while I am busy doing something else...I was trying to post a review onto PHPCOW for the first time....so I instantly got jacked all out of shape.

1st stupid thing about it...I recently reviewed the case, an NZXT Lexa Blackline. It was the first case I ever reviewed that didn't have a speaker, either an included loose piezo or one built into the computer. I had planned to find a loose one, but hadn't thought about it...until now. So, with no speaker, I had no idea what the beep codes were.

So, I got to thinking maybe he tried some overclocking. He never has before, but he is slowly getting more interested in what is inside of the case, so I cleared the CMOS. It did nothing but enable the stupid splash screen so now I can't see anything that is going on.

So, I did all of normal stuff...checked to make sure CPU and cooler were making good contact, reseated RAM and video card both a few times. I laid the computer down on its side to do that, so I had to unplug all of the USBs plugged into the case ports.

Next time, it booted up fine. Ok, cool. One of the USB cables I unplugged was the keyboard, so I plugged it into the rear of the case, where it belonged, and rebooted...once again, it was fine. After it all was over, my wife asked me what was wrong. I told her that I really had no idea, as I had done so many corrective actions at one time there was no way to tell.

He got home later in the evening, and knew nothing about what had happened, I didn't think to tell him.

Today when he got home from school, he had a windows update, and had to reboot after it. Once again, the rig froze up. I was about to head out to the store, so once again, I get bent out of shape at having to stop what I'm doing. I do all that I did yesterday to no avail. I didn't lay the rig down this time. I dig around and find a speaker. I got the normal single short beep. So what the hell?

I decide to put the old PSU back in...maybe it didn't like this one. His desk was pretty crowded, so I asked him to move his keyboard. He did, and moved a card reader that was next to it that he recently started using to put music onto his phone. Changing the PSU didn't work. He has a digital readout on his motherboard, and the code where it froze up was when it was enabling the USB.

So, I'm sitting there, wondering what the hell was going on. I look at the keyboard...it was still plugged into the rear of the rig. I look at the plug into the side of the rig. It led to the card reader....hmmmm....card reader.....freezing up while enabling USB....damn...the rig thought that the SD card in the card reader was a flash drive and it was trying to flash the BIOS. DUH!!!! I unplug the card reader, and it boots up fine.

I need some Xanax. Or enroll in anger management classes.

[Elysium]

Dang... sounds like me in this thread: Monitor/Graphics Card Problem

Anyhow, glad you didn't smash the computer to bits.

[fstroupe]

Nah, I don't do that stuff anymore...though I'm sure that once a neighbor thought me crazy when she saw me kicking in the doors of my old POS truck...and beating it with a broomstick I used to hold the hood up. LOL

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

ROFLMAO ... Been there!

Only the Devil himself is a meaner legalist than a PC on the fritz.