Everything looks good with the power chord.

Should any of that other stuff be broken? The computer is less then a year old and is an HP.

There's a hum and the light for the power is on. Would it still be one of those things?

so when you unplug it, plug it back in, & turn it on does the CD-Rom light come on? Floppy light come on? power supply fan come on? and extra fans come on? BIOS memory count come up?

Did you have a power surge/lightning storm last night?

All of those things come on when I plug it back in. I don't think the BIOS memory count is coming up, but I don't think it's a battery problem.

Have you reset the CMOS? Might give that a shot. Could have overheated. Was it an MPEG render?

I reset the CMOS, but it still doesn't work. It was an AVI render.

The help is appreciated.

I helped a friend to create a video on his machine (an HP) and while it was rendering overnight... the fan died and the processor cooked.

So...off to Fry's to pick up a motherboard, case, etc. to re-build him a new machine--this machine had four fans and an autoshut off if the processor fan died.

Have you opened the case and looked to see if your processor fan is working? Any unusual beeps?

Ok... just one last thing... is the brightness & contrast ALL the way down? One time I thought my computer died (p mmx 200, about 4-5 years old at the time). Ends up the brightness was wal the way down (had nobs & i accidently moved the nobs one time!)

Yeah, the fans are all working and the brightness is up.

Thanks, though. I'm trying to get in touch with technical support now.

This is kind of off the wall, but worth a thought.

Is it possible that you routed the temp files, or perhaps the rendered file, to the C: drive, with the result that the drive is completely full, or at least too full to permit boot up? Normally if the space on the C: drive gets dangerously low you'll get an error message, but perhaps not in this case.

I'm not sure how you'd correct this, but the HP tech support people might have an idea regarding how to check it out and perhaps how to fix it.

Another thought: have you tried booting from the system disc, rather than from the hard drive?

Jack

When the pc is booting, what is on the screen? If it was black, then video card could be the problem. Does the screen show that the components are being recognized? HDD, irqs etc? How far does it get. Can you boot from a floppy or windows cd?

How about unplugging all the IDE peripherals; like the hard drive(s), CD drive(s) and floppy. Try booting without them, and see if it makes any difference. Also, try unplugging your memory and plugging it back in nice and snug. Memory likes to develop 'chip creep'; if it gets warm they like to wiggle out of their sockets!

This may be too simple to mention but I will anyway...

During power up the motherboard runs a basic diagnostic check of the system and delivers a POST code in the form of one or more beeps via the PC speaker. When all checks out as good the POST code is a single beep. When something doesn't pass the test then a series of beeps will be heard. The motherboard manufacturer will have a list of POST codes and their meanings.

If there is no beeping at all during boot then boot tests were unable to be executed indicating a faulty motherboard or processor (the latter being more likely).

Blues

[original message deleted]

Obviously, I have nothing to contribute.

Do you have an emergency boot disk? If so, boot up the computer from the disk and not the C drive.

Haze

> Of course, it could be something simple like the monitor is dead. Have you tried another monitor?

Well, from the original post:

"The monitor works when piugged in to another pc so it's not the problem"

I know we are all trying to help, but some of this has already been covered.

Go on Rexie! You tell 'em!

Grazie

All of the suggestions are good so let's try to be systematic.

Try this system's boot drive in another machine as a second drive. Is it readable? If so, is it full? If so, delete some stuff and put it back in the first machine.

Now, simplify the computer. Remove everything that you don't absolutely need. If you can get rid of the graphics card and run off the integrated graphics or another card, try that. Also, exchange the keyboard and mouse with another one.

Sometimes faulty hardware will keep a system from reaching post. Usually you'll get a beep code if the system gets that far.

Which HP system? I write a lot of service training material for the home lines. I'd be happy to look stuff up.

Rob Mack

i called tech support and the guy couldn't get it to run. HP is going to fix because it's under warranty. If they tell me what was wrong, I'll post the solution.

dwayne00, what did you have your system set to do at the end of the render? If you did not have it set to shut down, but you found it shut down when you checked it in the morning, then something might have failed during the render. Could be a fuse on the motherboard (some mobo's do have them) or something inside the power supply failed without fully killing the whole power supply. Heat, voltage spikes, etc., all possible causes. Hope HP gets it up and running and that your video project and other data is intact.