Need help Cant Boot

[blasterfreak88]

So earlier today I cleaned some of the components in my computer of dust and suck and then booted the computer up and everything was running smooth so I thought I would run Prime 95 for a little bit to see how my temps were looking. With prime 95 running my cpu temp was about 35 after about 20 mins so I decided to listen to itunes for a little bit so i had itunes prime 95 and google chrome open and everything was working fine. Next I went to the kitchen for a drink and all the sudden I hear my music freeze and start making this awful noise so I ran back to my bedroom to find the computer BSoDing and it making this awful noise so I unplugged the computer. After I let it sit for a few mins I tried to reboot and now it just hangs on the page with the ECS motherboard logo. I have no clue what is happening. I can go into the bios settings and stuff but I when I leave there it reboots like it should and then just hangs on that screen again. I need help. Thanks in advance for any help. I am now on my crappy old laptop until I can get this fexed.

 

[Slaymate]

Have you reset the bios / cleared the cmos yet?

 

[blasterfreak88]

After I posted I took the case back apart and reset the CMOS and checked over all of the components and water cooling items and everything seemed fine. I then tried to boot and now it hangs on that ECS motherboard screen for like 30 seconds longer than it should and then it boots up to windows. Everything seems fine in widnows but then I tried to run 3DMark06 and it failed after the 1st graphics test. I am completely confused on what is going on here. Did my motherboard just crap out on me? I hope not because I just went through a three week ordeal with MSI on getting my gtx 260 replaced on warranty. I hope I dont have to send my MB in now cause I dont have a spare of those that I could just throw in.

 

[koinonas]

How did you clean the dust out of your computer. You may have damaged some of the components with static when you were cleaning it out. I've heard that using vacuum cleaners is a big no-no as they can zap components with a lot of static. Also did you earth yourself prior to opening it up or were you working on it standing on carpet or the like?

 

[blasterfreak88]

I just used some compressed air and a cloth for the fans and case. The computer wasnt really that bad since I just built it in the last couple months. I was sitting on carpet while I cleaned it. If I killed it with static why did it run for over a half and hour on full load with prime95 with good temps and everything before it died?

 

[koinonas]

Compressed air from my understanding is the proper way to clean out dust on electrical equipment. So there's a tick for that. When you say cloth for fans (for CPU and graphics card?) and case, is this the outside or includes the inside as well? And was the cloth pure cotton or did it have some nylon or polyester in it (again this can build up a fair bit of static in it)

Working on carpet is a big no-no for electrical equipment as you can build up a lot of static on yourself and end up zapping components. Ideally, your computer should not be plugged into anything (the electrical cord provides an earth even it power point is turned off and so attracts static to the computer), sitting on some anti-static mat, and you should be earthed with some sort of ESD strap. Having said that, I've rarely worked on my own personal machines with all these precautions (though I've got no excuse if something dies on me).

Damage due to static discharge is one of those weird problems. It's only visible at the microchip level and is very erratic and inconsistent in behavioiur (can work perfectly one minute and then refuse to work at all the next with no pattern).

Just a couple of things extra you could check is make sure your graphics card, RAM and everything else is seated in properly and not loose. Apart from that you could also try isolate away from graphics card by testing another graphics card in your machine, or trying your card in another machine. But again becareful with Static when working on anything internal on a computer.

Also to help rule out software, is there any other hard drives you can boot from. For example I had a friend who was having lots or problems with their computer. Some of the techs were claiming no issue, or that it was software related. So I did a clean install of just the OS on another partition was able to recreate the issue within 30mins. The tech's then found it hard to blame anything else and soon found the hardware problem and fixed it.

 

[blasterfreak88]

The cloth I used was cotton and i didnt clean the GPU at all since its just an old 9600gt that I had laying around until my gtx 260 makes it back early this week. I rebooted again and reset my overclock settings after I reset the CMOS and now the only thing that I have a problem with is the fact that it hangs on the ECS screen still. After it makes it past that its really fast. I have a solid state drive that I am using. I dont think this could be the problem because it has the issue in the bios. Just wanted to get some opinions though.


I am editing the post because since my last post I have fixed the problem. I took the case apart again and started examining things very closely and I found that the SATA cable on my Solid State got a kink in it right by where it connects to the HD and so I grabbed a cable out of a computer that I was building on the side to start a folding at home project and as soon as I replaced the cable and rebooted it took off just like it used to. Thanks for the comments though. I didnt know that SATA cables were that delicate.

 

[Finis]

have you tried running your computer outside of the case, its sounds very similar to a problem i have but im still waiting for parts, also when you turn your system on what beeps does it make and what mobo are you using?

edit: i hadn't read the post above mine XD

 

[bentobaku]

Check your RAM... I have had it happen 3times now that I popped out the ram and it caused problems after cleaning. The hang up could be the Mobo hanging up on the ram test.