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Question

computer having a seizure and not coming on

by Jun 12, 2018 3:09PM PDT

so recently i bought a cheap computer, i mean very cheap, off a second hand sales website. it was so cheap because he "didnt know how to put it together". so after i put it all together i got it to turn on. this is as far as ive got so far. i had many problems like at first it wouldnt post then it would take 10 minutes to post to my display and other little annyoing things. i then found out it doesnt have an OS so i managed to get a hold of a windows 8.1 64 bit cd and re cabled it to run the cd player then changed boot order and so on....but was then met with a memory test failed. so i rang around my local repair shops and they said i should bring it in and they'd sort it out, i didnt because i was away, and ive tried again today and it recognizes the RAM, all 3GB of it, and today i got media test failed. so i realised i had to reconfigure the boot order as the battery inside is dead and now it comes up with the packard bell logo for about 2 minutes which seems like an eternity, flashes up something, says boot from cd for 5 seconds, then comes up with the blue windows logo like on 8.1 for a minute or two depending on how it feels, no loading spinning symbol thing thought just the windows logo, flashes error codes for a split second, flashes blue then repeats from the packard bell logo. i dont have a clue whats wrong with it, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

the little information on it i have :
bios version 10g
release date 11/25/05
intel Prescott CPU
pentium 4
3.06GHz / 533 MHz
1024KB cache
3 nanya 1GB RAM at 500MHz
dual channel / asymmetric RAM, DDR2
gigabyte gv-n210d3-1gi rev 2.0 graphics card
all on a gigabyte ga-8i915pmd motherboard

shes old but shes only needed for a few limited things. anything else I'll reply ASAP

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Clarification Request
Yes you know the age of this thing.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 12, 2018 3:23PM PDT

But these do suffer from many issues as the years pass so how about a simple thing.

The Media Test Failed on google has many ideas so to me this could be a failed or unplugged hard drive. Can you get to the BIOS screen? What does it show for drives and what is the date there?

OH WAIT!! THE BATTERY IS DEAD? THIS CAN LEAD TO SO MANY FAILURES. The cmos battery is a dollar item. Why wasn't that fixed?

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battery fault?
by hxdderzphd Jun 22, 2018 2:33AM PDT

only showing the cd drive, i think theres a fault with the second SATA cable i have. the date when reset is january 2005. i dont know whether its not recognizing the cmos battery or its dead but it wont save my settings, im going to buy another battery and try again.

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Answer
Replace the cmos battery
by Jun 12, 2018 11:17PM PDT

Power on and enter the bios.
Set the date and time and the boot order to disc first.
Save and exit.

Grab a copy of memtest86 and put it on a disc.
Put the disc in this machine.
If it boots let it run for a few hours......no errors allowed.

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