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I just thought of something. Also I've been having video problems. If the monitor goes into power save sometimes it dosen't come out. the light turns from yellow to green like is should but no display. If I reboot I'll get a really funky display and I'm not sure if the box finishes booting when it does this either. Last time it did it i had to bott it 5 times in a row to get it to boot... this is a 6 year old suckpaq so it's days may be numbered
Sounds like a good candidate for roof testing to me... ROFL
I'd suggest testing your Hard Drive and memory, those cause intermittent problems. . .Power Supply too, but not as easily tested for problems
After reading your last post - this definitely sounds like a hardware problem. On older Compaqs, they had a diagnostic partition on the HDD that also contained info needed by the CMOS. If that partition has been deleted, you have problems. Another thing to suspect is the MB. Sounds to me like you are loosing communications intermittantly with various system devices.
'Course now we've all given you half a million things to suspect and check out, and haven't nailed one down, but at least you're a little closer to a solution. (PS - I have worked on those older Compaqs, and let me tell ya; they won't withstand a 20ft drop. They just don't like that type of hardware testing...) ;)
Video or memory is my worthless guess of the evening. If it's onboard video you will have to disable it in bios and test with a different video card. I'd suggest testing the video card first then trying ram..just one at a time though.
TC
Guys....
Thanks for the Ideas... I wish i had losts of spare parts to check things with but Mom won't let me collect a whloe pile of spare parts :(
New CPU may be in order here
It might be worth a trip to a shop to get it diagnosed. Will be a lot cheaper than a new computer.
TC
my father had the same problem on his Compaq... After replacing the memory and installing a real video card, the problem dissapeared (THAT problem, NEways)...
I think you hit the nail on the head with your last comment, though... I would get her a real computer. It's just the right thing to do. :)
Rev
Just one little idea. Listen to the power supply fan closely while it accesses the HD. We had a machine at work that was doing this kind of thing and it turned out to be the Power Suplly was failing. Replaced the supply and no problems since. P.S. it was also a Win98 box. If the fan changes speed thats the problem.
Dbl_Tap
thanks guys.
I'll have to try and investigare over the weekend