Computer savvy people? update post 21

[Blue_Frog]

If you dont want to gut your computer, and just want to find out what hardware components you have --

1. Click on Start - 'Help and Support'
2. Click on the 'Computer Information' link on the left side
3. Click on 'Tools' on the left side bottom, under the 'See Also' category
4. Click on 'My computer information' on the left side
5. Click 'Find information about the hardware installed on this system' on the right side panel.

It will display all your system information. You can print or write down the info from here. Also includes the installed drivers.


Another diagostic tool --
1. click start - run
2. type in msinfo32 (hit enter)
3. a diagnostic window will appear
- Click on the + beside components on the left side panel
- Click on the 'Problem Devices' in the list.
-- See if anything appears on the right hand side, and what the error code is.


If you want to see if you have any hardware conflicts --
1. Click Start - Settings - Control Panel
2. Double click on the 'System' icon
3. Click on the Hardware tab on the new window
4. Click on the Device Manager button
-- See if anything displays with a red X through it.

[Hellow]

Adding to Blue Frogs post:
If you want a kind of medium level information on your computer go to:
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Information

[Blue_Frog]

Adding to Blue Frogs post:
If you want a kind of medium level information on your computer go to:
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Information

Same as running msinfo32 (part 2 of my post) -- i'm lazy and hate clicking through things I'm all about the direct running from the "Start-Run"

[Sirrahsim]

As much as I would love to do all of those things... the computer with the problem will not boot up! Even when I try to boot it into safe mode it crashes and gives me the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

Right now I am on my husband's laptop because the only thing that I can do with MY doorstop of a computer is to run a bootable disc. I was able to run memtest because it was on a Linux CD. The Windows Repair Console was about as helpful as a bottle of water for a forest fire. It crashed as well

[Blue_Frog]

As much as I would love to do all of those things... the computer with the problem will not boot up! Even when I try to boot it into safe mode it crashes and gives me the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

Right now I am on my husband's laptop because the only thing that I can do with MY doorstop of a computer is to run a bootable disc. I was able to run memtest because it was on a Linux CD. The Windows Repair Console was about as helpful as a bottle of water for a forest fire. It crashed as well

So, it sounds like your computer is posting, and trying to load into windars and failing? I see from your first post that it do this trying to go to safe mode -- are you able to get into 'Safe Mode Command Prompt Only' or 'Command Prompt Mode'?

Also, you could prolly pull your hardware information from your system BIOS on bootup.

I'm sorry to hear that your computer has turned into a big pile One other thing you might be able to do (if the RAM testing, swapping ports etc. isn't working at home), is take your RAM to a local computer shop, and see if they can test it for you.

[Sirrahsim]

My computer will get all of the way to the full screen windows logo and then go black for a moment before coming up with the BSOD. When I try to load into safemode it runs through all of the files until it gets stuck at the file past drivers/mup.sys and then goes to the BSOD. My boys are both napping *gasp!!* so I'm going to go test the RAM now

[Sirrahsim]

It looked like a dust bunny family reunion inside my tower I cleaned out the case and gave the fans a good scrubbing with a Q-tip. Throughout the time that my comp was working but messing up from time to time I was keeping an eye on the cpu temp and it never went higher than it is supposed to. It turns out that I only have one stick of RAM but it was filthy so I cleaned it off a bit. The wrench in the works is that now that I have plugged the essential things back in to test if it works my monitor won't work! As soon as I turn the computer on it says that it is entering power saving mode.... SO it might have fixed the problem but if it did I don't know it I'm off to fiddle with the connections and make sure that I didn't knock anything lose.