Please help windows not loading

[Jo_G12]

Hi,
My granddaughter's computer will not load. It is relatively new although not a great one it's as KOB 630e FSFX however it ran like a dream until it was shut off two weeks ago. They went on vacation and when they tired to use it today it got as far as the Windows 98 splash screen and will not load anything else. I checked to make sure everything was plugged in and it was I had no trouble getting into set-up and checked to make sure the bios n things were right and everything looks fine but it will not load windows and I don't know what to do to fix it. I tried loading only the bare safe things and it wouldn't load and I tried to the other load and still nothing. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Jo

[andyms18a]

try opening up the case and removeing any pci cards like modem, sound, network, just leave the vid card in and try a boot post back with results if it dont have pci cards dissable the onboard modem and sound in the bios

[GaryRouth]

Hi Jo, Hi andy

figured I'd give you a few quick fixes to try before the hard work:

1) Also check to make sure no cds were left in the cd drives. I've seen boots fail trying to read cds that read Ok when warm, but no so great when cold. (and make sure no floppies are in the floppy drive)

2) If it's still fairly new, is it covered by warranty? (some will come to your door for a year & fix things)

3) Boot with either the Windows98 CD, or a Win98 floppy "start computer with cd-support", and from the A: prompt, type scanreg/restore Pick a date from the list just prior to their vacation [an alternative is to try scanreg/fix]

4) Try andy's list

. . . this is all assuming that you mean Safe Mode when you said "the bare safe things". If you actually meant msconfig, then see if tapping the F8 key at system startup lets you start in Safe Mode.
. . . Gary

[Cricket]

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode yet? Hold the Shift key while the system is booting up. If you can get into Safe Mode, the problem may be a virtual driver. If you can't get into Safe Mode, the problem is hardware related and you'll have to troubleshoot to find out which device is at fault.

Try unplugging the optical drivers from the IDE cables and see if the system will boot up.

Cricket

[Jo_G12]

Ok,
I have tried all of therse thingss.
safe mode I try that one=nothing
Command prompt ony=nothng
Safe mode and commandprompt only=nothing
I tried taking out the only PCI in there and still nothing.
I tried restting the hhd, cd-rom and dvd= nothing.
I can't seem to set into where I can get either an A or C prompt
It does not mose from the page where I have highlighted any of these things to do.
I don't know about the optical drives from the IDE cable because I'm not sure what to do.
This is a home built computer so no warrenty

[Jo_G12]

I put Win98 boot in and get the disk error replace the disk and prss any key and the windows splash page comes on and nothing else.

[Jo_G12]

Sorry,
I meant to say that I have tried all these things
command-prompt only
tried resetting the hhd,cd-romand dvd-rom and still nothing
While on the page from f8 it never moves after I highlight something and click enter.
I can't seem to get to either an A or C prompt to type anything today although I did yesterday and stoed Scandisk and although it turned to the blue page for scanning it didn't scan it just sat there (i/2 hour) until I turned it off now I can't even get back there.

[andyms18a]

can you boot with a win98 flopy disk try 2 or 3 as one may be faulty also this may be a heat problam or bad ram do you have 2 sticks of ram you can remove one and try to boot then remove the other one and try agen also try removeing the sides from the case and place a desk top fan next to the computer with cold air blowing in if that dont work remove the heatsink from the cpu put some artic silver on it and replace it making shor its tight (dont switch the computer on when the heat synk is removed as it will burn out the cpu)
if you can boot from a flopy then try a repair install of windows

[mike breck]

If you cannot get to an A: prompt from a Win98 Startup Disk (Bootdisk) then my natural inclination is to backtrack a little and check your hardware foundation is solid.

Disconnect the cables and power leads from the floppy drive, Hard Drive, CD-Rom, remove the PCI card, and disconnect all preipherals apart from mouse and keyboard.

Start up the PC.

All being well, the PC should POST and (because there isn't a bootable drive) arrive at a "Disk Boot Failure - Insert System Disk and Press Enter".

If you can't get as far as that, the one of the basic components is faulty.

However, assuming you get as far as that, now that you know the basic components are working, try connecting your Hard Drive (HD) and seeing if it will boot. Make sure it is detected properly in the BIOS.

Can you try Slaving the HD in another PC and seeing if you can access it thro Windows on the PCs existing HD? The HD may be faulty.

[GaryRouth]

Hi all

I took a look at the specs for that motherboard. I hadn't heard of Kobian before, but it sure looks like a lot of ECS/PCChips/Amptron SiS 630 boards I've seen: just about everything is onboard: video, audio, lan, modem.

It's an interesting board - looks like it didn't come out until about August of 2001 [a bit late in the PIII/Celeron cycle]. One thing I've noticed with some of the SiS 630 chipset boards I've seen is a sensitivity to power surges. I've seen some where the Bios Settings were thrown off by a surge. Since it's easy to do, you could check again in the Bios Setup screens & make sure all the basics are OK - [and remember you do have the option while troubleshooting to simply choose "set Defaults and Exit"]. ...And, just for another quick stab, try using another keyboard (if you have an extra around = of the same type as your grandaughter's) - and perhaps change the "Halt Boot On" errors option to "All, but Keyboard" - you'll see that menu item near the bottom of the first Setup screen, usually.
______________
Mike B has given you an excellent step-by-step to follow should none of the quick fixes work. While you're disconnecting things, check around on the motherboard for signs of leaky capacitors, or any burnt areas. Hope it's not that.

[oh, and if and when you get to the slaving the HD step in mike's list: if you don't have a PC that you can slave to easily, you could also at that step use a bootable diagnostic floppy from the hard drive manufacturer's website]

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Jo_G12]

Actually it's hooked up to a different keyboard, mouse and even monitor.
I finally got to the A (after 4 win startup disks) prompt so I went to fidisk and deleted both drives and reformatted and am going to try a new clean install. It is foramtting d: now and I'll let you know how everything turns out. I thnak you all for your help.
Although the mobo is not great it actually ran better than my husabands HP Pent.III.
Thanks Again,
Jo

[GaryRouth]

Kinda wild time with the startup disks. What do you think did the trick with the 4th one? (...were they all home-made disks, the original MS startup floppy, or perhaps a download from bootdisk.com?)

If the hardware is stable, you might be OK from here on out. . . and another mystery machine goes into the "wonder what caused it?" file
. . . Gary

[Jo_G12]

Two were homemade and two were the super downloaded ones lol. I'm not sure what the problem was. I think maybe a memory stick was going bad. Would that do it? It got awful hot so I took it out. I know the mobo book says that it will take 512 megs but I'm sure that 256 wil be just as good for her. SO far everything is working fine. I have not tried the modem yet. I sometimes run into a problem with win98 and modems. I did hook up a cable RJ45 so I could download all the updates a lot quciker than her AOL using my comcast.
Jo

[GaryRouth]

Interesting that one memory stick sas hot, but the other(s) worked nice and cool (or perhaps the normal warm). I'm typing this on my daughter's old K6-2 350, the PC100 in it hardly warms up much at all - most PC100/PC133 SDRAM doesn't get hot much. You're right that bad memory could stop a boot (although I'm used to seeing errors when this happens - protection errors, page faults, and such). You could test that stick with something like DocMemory at http://www.simmtester.com [might want to have someone else test it for you, since that computer is finally acting well.] You also might want to restart your computer sometime after you've been using it a lot, and enter the Bios Setup screens, then look at the system temperatures reported in the "PC Health" or "Hardware Monitor" menus. PIIIs and Celerons run wonderfully cool, so it things are getting hot, might be flaky fans. I've worked on some systems where the fans would work only part of the time - just enough so that no one noticed untill things were just about cooking inside. - Just a thought.

Your grandaughter might not even notice the 256mb less memory. Win98 with 256 is a nice combination. If I had to choose a "sweet spot" - either 256mb or 384mb would be my choice for 98.

Good luck with the modem. Pop another line here if you want help tracking down a decent driver for it. . .
Sounds like you're almost done with this project
. . . Gary