What to do if...your computer decides it hates you and won't run?

[am_monkee]

Don't know if this belongs here, so apologies to mods if you have to move it.

I just decased my pc and mounted everything to a board. Since I have a cocktail cab, there's not a lot of room to begin with.

The problem is when I power up the computer, it turns on, but it does not boot. The monitor shows what appears to be a blinking underscore like this: _.

Did I just forget to reconnect something when I took everything apart? Or did I thoroughly screw my computer up? Anyone had this problem? The computer was working fine running on xp before I decased it. Thanks in advance.

[4Aaron GE]

Hard to say what would cause that.  Incidentally, my new 'dumpster diver special' did that today when I was trying to get XP installed on it.  Strip the thing down to the bare essentials (RAM, mobo, CPU) and see if it will at least get to the POST screen.  Then hook the HDD back up and see if it'll boot.

[leapinlew]

4Aaron is right.

How far into the boot does it go? Does it beep at all?

[am_monkee]

it does beep at the beginning but then remains at the flashing underscore. I'll try to remove everything and then hook it back up. thanks.

[leapinlew]

I've seen this if the memory isn't seated correctly.

At least your getting a beep in the beginning. 1 beep right?

[am_monkee]

Ok. I thought it was up and running, but it's now beginning to boot and is remaining on my boot screen (which is customized, but the equivalent of the xp screen.). i checked to make sure everything was secure. It does beep once and is not displaying that underscore anymore, which I suppose is good. And, it's definitely starting to boot, but is stuck. Any other ideas? Thanks.

[am_monkee]

I'm officially an idiot. You were right Lew. Thanks very much. 

[shorthair]

I'm officially an idiot. You were right Lew. Thanks very much. 

Too harsh on yourself. Good that is was something simple.

[am_monkee]

quote author=shorthair link=topic=64755.msg649011#msg649011 date=1174852122]

I'm officially an idiot. You were right Lew. Thanks very much. 

Too harsh on yourself. Good that is was something simple.
[/quote]

Thanks. It's true-the last thing I have money for is a new motherboard.

[dmckean]

If you're looking to save space try getting rid of your Hard Drive and boothing from a USB thumbdrive in your motherboard supports it. Hard drives always fail eventually and are bad in embedded applications like we're doing.

[am_monkee]

Hmm...not sure if my board supports that. I'll definitely keep that in mind in the future in case I want to get rid of my hd, but for now I'm just happy I can play games
Thanks for the tip.