I think i have the worst luck with computers, I just cant seem to keep a fully functioning one for more than 2 months before it decides it needs to take a break and stop working.

Anyway so I need your help now, I was using Vista fine until some point last week, Vista started to blue screen me, nonstop, a cycle of blue screens, I would not have enough time to read the screen before it restarted, and then it blue screens again. I reinstalled vista thinking that it was the problem, the problem is still there. I didnt format the hard drive, thing is, I got my old xp cd back [my computer while good, isnt up to vista performace levels anyway] and just started to boot up xp to install, but then in the menu, i get another Blue screen, this happened before when I was using the windows Vista recovery on the install cd, It wont stop blue screening me. even in the emergency recovery cd' s!

Now I think its the work of a virus, so I will format the entire hard drive from Bios. First of all.. how do I do that? and from what you read, do you think that will fix it?

It could just be a bad boot sector, possibly a boot sector virus. Unless the harddrive is damaged then formatting it should get rid of your problems.

Set the machine to boot from the disc drive, restart, you' ll get a " Press any key to boot from CD..." message.

Press any key.

I' d recommend not pressing F6 or F2 when prompted for SCSI drivers and Automatic System Recovery because if it is a boot sector virus then it probably wouldn' t help.

You' ll get the setup screen, but press R instead of Enter to access the Recovery Console menu. Select the installation you want to repair, ...so if you see:

1. C:\WINDOWS

...you press 1 and hit Enter.

You' ll get a blinking cursor, and all you need to do is type:

FORMAT C:/fs:FAT32

... and hit Enter ...or replace FAT32 with NTFS depending on your required file format.

Once it' s done it' ll reboot and you' ll be able to install Windows again.

well its a little late to do what you said as I have formated already, by using the xp cd and then deleteing that partation, I am a little warry of it as it was very fast, but there is nothing on the hard drive now, for some reason i have 7mb of unparitioned space,, anyway i dont think that matters now.I am still getting blue screens, I try to install through the xp cd but I cannot, it still blue screens me.

No luck?

none, i didnt do what you said yet, as i could format from the vista install disc, which seems to work. But every time the install trys to load windows for the first time it blue screens, I still have the problem, even with the hd formated. Its either a big hareware error [but i doubt that becuase it is posting correctly and bios show no errors that i am aware of] , or one of those boot virus.

What cards do you have in the motherboard?, I would suggest that you try to install with a minimum configuration, eg, if you have onboard graphics enable those before formatting and re-installing, and remove the the adaptor and sound card if you have one.do you have any clue as to what the BSOD is? Maybe something along the lines of IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL? something along those lines will point to either a driver issue or a hardware issue, try removing some of the memory, some of the BSOD' s are caused by memory errors. Hope this helps.

Like Alijay said, it might be a dead hardware part. If you have another computer, try switching HDD' s first. If the problem follows you with the other computer then you know it' s a software/HDD problem, if the problem stays with your current computer and the other one works then you would know its a hardware problem like a dead videocard or something.

If it is infact a hardware problem, try swaping individual parts one at a time to see if you can isolate which part is defective.

It sounds like bad RAM, so if you have more blocks than one, try doing it with one at a time in the PC, if you only have one block, try with a block from another PC if ýou can!

yeah i know what Bsod is, I think i got every one out there recently, kind of like that pokomon craze, i think i caought them all, yeah that Irql_Not_or_less_Deal_or_no_deal? comes up alot, i know that is a driver issue as i used to get it whenever i plugged the scanner into the pc with vista, i got bad memory management, i got the one where it dumping the page file and then restarts, i got the one saying usbport issue, course i got the ones that just tell you that something went wrong. lol i know everything works, as i used them all, even when i was getting this problem [for a week or so now, just decided to tackle it today] it was blue screening but i could still use vista for about 15mins, give or take before it bsod' ed me, then i was forced into safe mode [which only bsod med a few times] the soundcard, usb ports worked. didnt test the gfx card but i never had a problem with it before. I' ll try taking them out anyway,

done a little research and all the signs point to bad ram, crasjing and blue screening at the xp instsall is meant to be big give away, i just hope it isnt my 1gig stick, ..or worse, the motherboard!

Get high quality ram, never buy cheap ram or cheap power supplies, everything else doesn' t matter, you can run a stable system with the shittiest motherboard, hard drivers, etc. but you can' t with shitty ram or PSU.

I hate when people spend $300 on a processor and $400 on a video card and then slap a $50 power supply and value ram in it... dumb asses.

turns out the 1gb is giving me 3 beeps on start up, which is good news, as i guess this is the cause of all my problems [and yes it was cheap, but i didnt think it mattered] Ironicly enogh i was in this excat same position about a year and half ago with this computer, lol, the 1gb stick ram was 3 beeping me as well and i had to chuck it out, and replace it.. with this. good investment on my part!. anyway, like last time, I am getting no picture from the gfx card or the mobo video output [which i have a hunch is broken anyway], how do i get my video output back? this is the part where i got stuck and ended up sending it back to a computer shop to get it fixed, I can do it myslef!

Get high quality ram, never buy cheap ram or cheap power supplies, everything else doesn' t matter, you can run a stable system with the shittiest motherboard, hard drivers, etc. but you can' t with shitty ram or PSU.

I hate when people spend $300 on a processor and $400 on a video card and then slap a $50 power supply and value ram in it... dumb asses.

I agree but I would never buy a cheap motherboard, especially combined with high end parts.

Silent go in your Bios and make sure your computer isn' t trying to use onboard, you have to switch it to use your GFX card.

ORIGINAL: emofag

Get high quality ram, never buy cheap ram or cheap power supplies, everything else doesn' t matter, you can run a stable system with the shittiest motherboard, hard drivers, etc. but you can' t with shitty ram or PSU.

I hate when people spend $300 on a processor and $400 on a video card and then slap a $50 power supply and value ram in it... dumb asses.

werd

how do i go in the bios to switch over to gfx card if I cant anything on the screen?

Well if you have an onboard graphics card, plug your monitor into that one, and you should see a picture again!

see thing is I am fairly sure the onboard graphics dont work, when i got this computer the delievery company decided to bash it up a bit and it was too late for my to try and get a refund, anyway thats whole different story, there is a way I am sure, I get nothing on screen when i plug into on board graphics, or into the gfx card.

yeah i forgot to say, its not posting since i took the ram out. i hear no beeps.

In that case you probably need to reset your bios, :S you have to find the CMOS jumper on your motherboard, that should set everythign to default, in which case it should autoselect your AGP/ PCI E card

did you plug it in?