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General discussion

Help need- system won't start

Jun 23, 2005 9:28PM PDT

Hi everyone- here's what's just happened- I've got a P4 1.6 Ghz with a MSI MS-6524GL Mobo running xp pro with 256 mb RAM. The PC has two hard drives, everything was working fine last night. This morning I had to back up an old hard drive for a friend so I set his HD to slave and connected it to the second hard drive's cables. It started up but all the text on the screen out of place so I turned the system off, reconnected my second hard drive (so it was just as before) and turned it on again. The pc whirs up and I can hear the hard drive clicking (the hard drive light is on steadily too, which it shouldn't be). The monitor does not switch on though and the system won't boot up. What have I gone and done?

Thanks in advance, I need to know whats going on Sad

Discussion is locked

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Try this...
Jun 23, 2005 10:11PM PDT

Return you system back you had it orginally. Boot up and just sit back and see if it corrects itself, give it 10-15mins., drink coffeee or soda, etc. or cut the grass.
If it stills sits but maybe shows some HD activity, leave it alone, until done. -OR- Boot-up and hit the F8 key to get menu for "safe mode" start-up, once in safe mode, aloow it to boot and finish, answer, "Yes" if so prompted to correct anything, allow to finish. Once done, reboot into normal mode and see if that fixed it.

Next time, place friend's HD on 2nd IDE port alone as master.

congrats '05 -----Willy Happy

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update
Jun 23, 2005 10:27PM PDT

ok things aren't looking as dire now, I removed the AGP graphiocs card and used the on board video and the pc booted up fine. Now it won't start with the AGP card in though, which is a bummer but not the burn-out I thought I was dealing with! any further help appreciated.

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Details matter.
Jun 23, 2005 10:55PM PDT

Such as the size of the power supply. Some AGP video cards are now drawing 110 Watts (Nvidia 6800's) and many ready to use PCs have just enough power to run what they put in the box.

Bob

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reply
Jun 23, 2005 11:02PM PDT

sorry, my bad- its an nvidia gforce fx 5500 (no external power required) and its working now that I've disabled 'auto agp calibration' in the bios- but is doing this advisable?

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Hmm.
Jun 23, 2005 11:08PM PDT
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I agree...
Jun 26, 2005 5:44PM PDT

Bob is correct, new generation video cards have a higher power requirement. What type of system do you have? Can you see the power ratings for you current power supply? If so, can you respond here with them?

A 350 watt power supply will get you by, however as the old saying goes bigger is better. The price difference between a 350 and 450 is nominal.