I started troubleshooting my P4 2.8GHz PC and it, like everything else, is giving me trouble.
Haven't seen the inside for 5 years. I didn't know it had a red PCB... D: prettyI am/was very sure that it was the HDD problem. There are 2 HDDs, a Seagate 80GB (primary master) and Maxtor 40GB (secondary master). With both on, it shows a blank screen exactly when I'm supposed to reach the Windows boot screen. Removing the primary master, it gets past that and shows that Windows is corrupted - as in, I must have left broken installation of it on the backup HDD. No problem, I put in the Windows installation disc, and realized that the CD-RW is practically dead. After lots of tries, it finally started reading... set the boot priority the CD-RW, and I installed Windows on the 40GB drive... starts up fine.
The Seagate 80GB HDD that has been giving me the problem initially.
Not all is lost when you can remove 1 of 2 HDDs!After an update, it starts to BSOD on me every time I am supposed to reach the Windows boot screen. Eventually, the BIOS settings etc. don't even show up when I power up the PC. I'm convinced that there's a hardware problem with my 40GB HDD as well, with a possibility that the motherboard died on me, or both.
However, on the bright side, I checked if the graphics card has a problem. I found an old GeForce 5600, and swapped out the GeForce 5700LE. Works just the same, apparently. Iit seems that the power supply, RAM and processor are working perfectly too. That's excellent, since I can at least salvage the pricey components on this PC.
In summary... potentially dead: HDD x 2, motherboard, CD-RW.
P.S.: I actually entertained a faint hope that the 40GB drive was the dead one instead, so I could recover some of my precious old stuff on my 80GB drive. Sigh. I feel old... the data is like, unrecoverable youth.
Edit: I disconnected the HDDs and CD-RW, and tried booting the motherboard alone. The power lights up - the PSU is surely alive... some parts light up, but my keyboard doesn't.. And it doesn't start at all. Here's my theory of what happened... Originally, the 80GB HDD was dead - it could still be connected on PATA interface, but it caused a corruption - so I could only boot from the 40GB HDD, and at the same time I couldn't boot from the OS CD because the CD-RW is half-dead. I switched around the graphics card so that I can see if it has started, just that the visuals aren't going to the screen because of a faulty graphics card. But that isn't the case. I suppose after a while of installing Windows on the 40GB HDD, the motherboard died - maybe I mishandled something and caused a static discharge?
So... here's what I'm going to do. I'll keep this node as it is. P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 100MB/s ethernet adapter, no HDD, no CD-RW etc. I'll need to find another P4 HT/DDR400 compatible Intel chipset.
In summary... potentially dead: HDD x 2, motherboard, CD-RW.
P.S.: I actually entertained a faint hope that the 40GB drive was the dead one instead, so I could recover some of my precious old stuff on my 80GB drive. Sigh. I feel old... the data is like, unrecoverable youth.
Edit: I disconnected the HDDs and CD-RW, and tried booting the motherboard alone. The power lights up - the PSU is surely alive... some parts light up, but my keyboard doesn't.. And it doesn't start at all. Here's my theory of what happened... Originally, the 80GB HDD was dead - it could still be connected on PATA interface, but it caused a corruption - so I could only boot from the 40GB HDD, and at the same time I couldn't boot from the OS CD because the CD-RW is half-dead. I switched around the graphics card so that I can see if it has started, just that the visuals aren't going to the screen because of a faulty graphics card. But that isn't the case. I suppose after a while of installing Windows on the 40GB HDD, the motherboard died - maybe I mishandled something and caused a static discharge?
So... here's what I'm going to do. I'll keep this node as it is. P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 100MB/s ethernet adapter, no HDD, no CD-RW etc. I'll need to find another P4 HT/DDR400 compatible Intel chipset.
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