Weird Computer Problem.


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I am experiencing a strange problem with one of my computers lately. My guess would be that something is wrong with the motherboard. My little brother screwed around with it like 4 months ago and since then I am trying to figure out what has gone wrong.

This is the problem: Whenever I try to turn on my computer, I have to detach the network cable and wait approximately 2 seconds for it to turn on and boot. Afterwards I can plug the cable back into the motherboard's onboard LAN connector.

Now why the hell is this so? It is really getting annoying. I cannot just switch that piece of shit on without crawling under my desk. Nothing else seems to be broken except for my cpu fan-connector. That thing just stopped supplying enough current so I have to use the case fan connector for my cpu. This leads me to the conclusion that something with the power supply must be wrong or a capacitor might have popped on the board.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be? I don't think it matters but the board is one of those ASUS AI boards. I would have to look up the model. It carries an Athlon64 AMD cpu, first batch.

I am not an electronics expert and neither an IT pro but I have put together dozens of computers in my life and have never seen or heard of a similar problem. What the hell could that be? Have I been smoking too much pott lately or what?
 
You could check the BIOS to see if he's managed to set the LAN as the first boot device or something like that.

Failing that, reset the BIOS and see if the defaults work.
 
My first guess would be the same as BaDToaD's - maybe the PC is trying to boot from LAN? It can take ages before it finds out it actually can't, so might be the problem? By removing the network lead, it knows there is no connection, so doesn't bother trying.
 
If messing with the Wake-On-Lan settings don't fix it, you might have to just disable the onboard LAN if it's an NForce-3 version of their AI boards. My ASUS NForce3's LAN stopped working altogether one day for no good reason.

No worries, I just installed a PCI NIC and disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS.
 
Okay... now these are some helpful ideas! Thanks a lot. I have had that Wake-on-Lan idea before and it's not turned on. I will try to see what happens if I just disable it! Maybe a bios reflash could solve the problem if the on board ethernet was the problem. If not, I still have a couple of ethernet cards lying around somewhere.

@senorquack: Yes, it is an nforce 3 chipset. And it's god awful. I don't know what must have possessed me to buy that motherboard.
 
My computer is totally buggered, can anyone help me?

I installed this registry editor software, and at the same time dropped my laptop...After I ran the registry editor and dropped my laptop I could no longer access my cd/dvd drive-it just isn't there in my computer (arbeitsplatz) And now my sound playback has started to really stutter across all programmes. And the laptop is running soooo slow!

I'm running XP pro media edition. At this time of year, we are so busy at bignosepoetry, and I am missing out on so much money it hurts..........

So, er...help...?
 
lubidog said:
dropped my laptop I could no longer access my cd/dvd drive-it just isn't there in my computer
Have you checked on the floor near where you dropped it? :D :lol:

Hahahahahaha! I kill me! I really do <_<
but seriously ...
The best thing would be to roll back to before you installed the reg-editor

If that's not possible uninstall it and try a reg-cleaner to reset your reg

Have you checked whether any cables have become loose? Is there power to the drive?
 
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Apparently for every person who loses their cd drive, someone else in the world loses their sarcasm detector :rolleyes:
 
Alex. said:
Apparently for every person who loses their cd drive, someone else in the world loses their sarcasm detector :rolleyes:
:D

But... Now I must flame lubidog for thread hijacking ;)
 
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@xnopasaranx

It definitely seems that the boot order in your bios is to blame and that it is trying to boot from a network connection first, Instead of your cd or hard drive.

Enter your bios (Press the DEL key during bootup), Once in the Bios setup utility, Select "Advanced BIOS features" (Second item down on the left) and press enter. On the "Advanced BIOS features" screen, Change the "First Boot Device" to CDRom, Change the "Second Boot Device" to Hard Disk and leave everything else unchanged. Press the "F10" key, Then press enter when the prompt appears to save settings and exit (It will be highlighted to YES by default). Your machine will reboot and should now boot from the hard drive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lubidog said:
My computer is totally buggered, can anyone help me?

I installed this registry editor software, and at the same time dropped my laptop...After I ran the registry editor and dropped my laptop I could no longer access my cd/dvd drive-it just isn't there in my computer (arbeitsplatz) And now my sound playback has started to really stutter across all programmes. And the laptop is running soooo slow!

I'm running XP pro media edition. At this time of year, we are so busy at bignosepoetry, and I am missing out on so much money it hurts..........

So, er...help...?
If you still have your original Windows XP install cd, You could try booting from the cd, As the drive may still be able to be seen by the bios but not by windows. If you have success with booting from the cd, You could do a repair/inplace install, Which keeps all your currently installed files and programs intact, And should sort out your registry problem.

(If you don`t have any success booting from the cd, Then it`s most definitely a hardware problem and you will have to bite the bullet and take it to someone to repair/replace the damaged parts.)

First: Uninstall the registry editor that you installed, Then follow the instructions in quotes below.

QUOTE
To reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD, follow these steps: 1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer.
2. When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message appears on the screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

Note Your computer must be configured to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. For more information about how to configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, see your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer.
3. You receive the following message on the Welcome to Setup screen that appears:
This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run on your computer:

To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.
4. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
5. Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.
6. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to reinstall Windows XP. After you repair Windows XP, you may have to reactivate your copy of Windows XP.


Let us know how it goes.

Trooper
 
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Thanks Trooper! I am backing up all my music and stuff, then will try this out! I am sure it's a software problem!

The problem is, it's the only cd/dvd drive I have, so booting from the cd isn't possible. But I followed a few onlibe guides, and now my computer sees my d drive, just can't read anything from it. But I think once I have finished backing everything onto the external drive I will be able to start in safe mode, delete all the virtual drives, and then hope that windows will load up the drivers for the old actual drive........

Failing that, is it possible to burn an image of a boot disk onto the external disc and load it via usb?
 
Okay, thanks to all you guys but no luck. I have got the right boot order in my bios. I had never put wake on lan on enabled. I have double checked it and everything!!! I really don't know what the hell could be wrong now. Pretty sure that this is a hardware fault of some sort but can't pin down what it could be.
 
I can't find that option in the bios. I might have overlooked it and will try again. It has to be somewhere in there.
 
Do you get anything on the screen when you leave the network cable in?

But then again, if it boots without the cable in, you shouldn't need to even disable it. Just put the cable into a PCI card or USB->Ethernet converter (or use Wifi) and just tell Windows to not to use it.
 
When I leave the network cable in it doesn't even power on.
 
xnopasaranx said:
When I leave the network cable in it doesn't even power on.
Try with another cable, and also see if the sockets lights are working.
Also try to only plug the computer side of the Rj45.
Perhaps a bios flashing could help?

If not it also could be some kind of short circuit. Perhaps have a look at the socket itself and the place where it's soldered to the motherboard.

Good luck with this issue
 
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