Hello,
I’m having some problems with my computer, and I’ve run into a brick wall more or less. I’ve tried all the obvious solutions; making sure all the hardware is seated correctly, air-dusting, checking each DIM of RAM, switching cables, switching slots cables are plugged in to, etc etc….
- I can’t remember all of the error messages I received verbatim, but what I have here is pretty close.
- Friday night my monitor stopped working. The green power LED was on, but it wasn’t displaying any image. I reset my computer and the image came back.
- Saturday morning, monitor stopped working again. Same symptoms as before. This time I checked my TV, which was also attached to my computer via a brand new HDMI cable. They were both plugged in to one of my SLI rigged video cards. Both screens were plugged into my GPU, which happens to have red diodes (the other, older GPU has blue diodes). My TV “searched for a signal” for roughly 10 seconds before it displayed a “no signal” error message.
- Sunday afternoon I notice that my HD activity LED light on my case was not on, although the HD its self was spinning.
- Monday night, with monitor plugged into Red GPU in slot 3, I reset my computer roughly 10 times quickly. Screen image came back with a “Graphics card detected in EPCI_3 or EPCI_2 slot. Please move card to EPCI_1 slot and reset computer” error message in the boot-up screen. I switched Red GPU (in slot 3 at the time) and Blue GPU (which was in slot 1). Plugged monitor back into Red GPU and had activity on the monitor, but not the TV.
- I noticed while switching the cards the Blue GPU (which is roughly a year older) was quite a bit cooler than the Red GPU. I don’t think this is a result of differentiated cooling in my case based on where my fans are. At the time, I assumed that the lower temperature in blue GPU was because it wasn’t functioning properly, or broken all together.
- Now, upon start up, the previous error message was now replaces by “Boot disk failure. Please insert system CD and restart computer”
- When my computer starts up and takes inventory of all it’s hardware, it registers all of its components properly including all 8 gigs of ram and the DVD drive which happens to be attached via an ATA cable. However, it does not register my HD. It simply isn’t there. When I enter the BIOS, my DVD drive is present in the list of ATA slots, but my HD isn’t. Prior to Friday night, my HD was front and center in the start up and BIOS ATA inventories.
- I attempted to boot from my Vista CD and received a 0x0000007E BSOD.
- I booted from CD in safe mode and managed to get to the Vista installation menu, wherein my HD is still not located. I cannot reformat, repair, or reinstall Vista.
- Tuesday morning, I inserted the offending HD in to my work computer here. Upon start-up I received a “no bootable device detected” error message. I know darn well there is a fully functional hard drive set as the master in this machine. I went in to the BIOS, and to nobody’s surprise, my home HD was not listed under the ATA ports. I took the hard drive back out, and everything boots and works perfectly again.
- As of now, I’m assuming both Blue GPU and my HD are busted and need to be replaced. I’m hoping someone has a better idea, hence this message.
- My home computer stats just for good measure:
- Both GPU’s are EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS’, SLI Rigged.
- Motherboard is an EVGA nForce 780i.
- RAM is OCZ 800MHZ DDR2 PC 6400. 4x2GIGS.
- Core 2 QUAD Q6600.
- My OS is Vista Home Premium 64 bit.
- My monitor is an Acer 22L16Wbd 22”.
- TV is a Samsung46LN650.
- Hard drive is a Seagate PATA/100 500GB 7200RPM. ST3500641A-RK. S/N 9QG1SW9E, PN: 9BD548-557.
- Please remember that everything worked perfectly before Friday night.
One last thing, while I swear my HD is spinning, my friend says he thinks it sounds slow, or broken. Could be, buts that rather subjective.
