From your description of the PC I would try replacing the MOBO's BIOS battery. Then, reboot and restore your PC's BIOS settings. Reboot, and your woes will most probably have vanished. HTH, Tomas Santos [log in to unmask] On Thu, 13 May 2004 00:03:51 -0500,In PCBUILD's Automatic digest processor wrote: John Brooks <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: PC not booting properly > > 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 The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech support at our newest website: http://freepctech.com