I have a Compaq, 1.3 ghz Celeron, computer. Yesterday, for a period of time, the computer would not boot up. After numerous attempts to get it started I came to the conclusion that the problem was in the hardware because at times it would not go past the first screen with the large red letters that say "Compaq". When it stopped on this "Compaq" screen I could get into setup by hitting F10 but upon leaving setup it would show a blank screen with the blinking cursor in the upper left corner and go no farther. Input from the keyboard or mouse would then have no effect at all.

I have had this computer over two years, use it almost every day and never seen anything like this. If any one has an idea what is happening here I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

Here are some more details of the time it would not boot properly:
1] A complete virus scan has been done.
2] PC is dual booted with Windows XP. On those starts when it would get to the hard drive, on either OS, the Windows Logo would be shown with a small bar type indicator that is constantly showing a motion from left to right. While this shows that the computer is doing something (not hanging up) it would not go beyond this point.
3] It would not boot from a CD or floppy. When a bootable floppy was inserted before turning it on the floppy drive light would come on for a few seconds as if it was reading the disk but that would be as far as it would go.
4] On two seperate attempts when I let it sit for a long time I was given a screen with options such as Safe Mode, Normal Start, Last Good Configuation, etc. Selecting one of them did not seem to help. Also these messages come from the Windows OS and it seems to me that the problem is not within the OS being that some times it would not go past the first "Compaq" screen as I explained in my first paragraph.
5] After about 40 minutes of trying I did get it to work and it seems to be working fine at this time. Nothing I did would have repaired it.

My concern is that it will do this again and may not cure itself the next time.
I am baffled and would like to see somebody elses opinion on what may be going on with this PC.

John Brooks

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com