something possibly fried

cacoen · 5th December 2006

HI, I was removing the dust from the inside of my computer the other day, I left it alone for a while and thinking she was helping out my girlfriend used a feather duster to remove some of the dust from the inside. When I tried to reboot it went as far as the windows loading screen, then my screen went black. I tried restarting a few times and each time it would either be black or black with a white flicker. Even booting in safe mode did nothing. After trying everything I could think of I cleared out my hard drives and reinstalled windows.This seemed to have fixed it although at times it would freeze up. But I just restarted it and it gave me the same black screen. After a few unsuccessful restarts I rebooted to last known good configuration and it booted normally(even though I havent changed any configurations since previous boots. Anyone able to tell me whats wrong? Im running 2 sata drives in raid-0 and 2 nvidia geforce 6800's in sli mode.

**Steve R Jones** · 5th December 2006

After replacing the girlfriend.....just kidding. Does she do windows...just kidding.

I would check all connections inside the case. A ram stick could be partially seated. The heat sink on the cpu coupld be unplugged...etc..

surferdude2 · 5th December 2006

I'd start with checking the RAM, either by running a software tester or pulling and testing either half individually, depending on your configuration.

Clearly, all indications point to hardware failure, either an intermittent connection or failed device. Merely reseating the RAM and other plugs and sockets may fix the problem. Exercise all plugs and sockets, to include HD data cables, etc.

**Rockster2U** · 5th December 2006

Quote:

Does she do windows .....

Quote:

my girlfriend used a feather duster ..... then my screen went black.

Don't worry about the computer, just keep the girlfriend - women like that are a rare find.

cacoen · 6th December 2006

Update- Ive decided to keep my girlfriend

cacoen · 6th December 2006

ok checked all the connection, everything looked good but I pushed everything in, hopefully that was it.

cacoen · 7th December 2006

ok, when I try and play battlefield 2142 the game freezes up. When I bring up task mananger I get a message that says something about the nvidia drives failing. This has happened 3 times in a row so far and yes I do have the most up to date drivers.

**bluzkat** · 7th December 2006

Check the cooling fans on your video card and carefully clean all the dust out. I recently cleaned mine (7800 GT) and I couldn't believe how much dirt had accumulated when the rest of my computer was fairly clean. If your cards are running too hot this could possibly cause the error messages. The nVidia 'Control Panel' will give you your GPU temps. Also make sure they are seated properly and check the power connectors. If problem persists post back. HTH

B

visionof · 7th December 2006

Bit alarming and frustrating as well as scary.
Basically it a matter of starting from scratch and being thorough.
You may of inadverently just nudged something just a tad.
Unplug your power supply from the back of your computer as precaution before doing anything.
Go through all your connections one by one and ensure that they are in place.
Then do the same with all your cards.
Be gentle do not flex your motherboard.
Then try booting.
Remember it does not take much to have poor contact of components even if the items look seated.
Next if you are still having problems try taking out the components and reseating one by one.
It is your choice as to whether you want to try rebooting one component at a time or in one swoop.
At some point you may want to take out the motherboard watch battery to restore the board to factory defaults. ( Take it out for several minutes or you may want to restore within the bios to factory defaults).
If you are still having problems try unplugging all the drives attached to the board and then attaching and rebooting one by one.
Just be thorough and carefull in pulling out the power cord before working on your computer.
Most likely you will be fine but sure is alarming.

**PeteC** · 7th December 2006

Quote:

Just be thorough and careful in pulling out the power cord before working on your computer.

That may be the case in the States where I recall the plugs are 2 pin without an earth. Here in the UK we use 3 pin plugs, one of which is an earth so the advise for UK is switch off at the mains and leave the computer plugged in. It remains earthed and when working on it keep part of an arm or wrist (bare) in contact with a metallic part of the case to discharge any static the body may have picked up.

Otherwise use an antistatic wrist band.

cacoen · 8th December 2006

just pulled everything out and put it back in, in the middle of internet browsing screen went black. Hard reset fixed it