I am having computer troubles and a good friend of mine told me this was a great place to get help.

While recently playing video games on my PC(Vista), the said game crashes and my computer would not allow me to launch any other games.

"Ok i said to myself, i'll just restart", but after i went to restart my computer loaded the basic mobo message and ect, and when the "loading windows" bar finished i was expecting to be greeted with the Windows Vista logo, but oh no.

I found my screen to be black. I tired safemode but it went to a black screen aswell leading me to believe either my power supply, graphics card, or mobo might be blown. I've tried taking the graphics card out and waiting for the mobo error beeps, but none came.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Originally posted by Supa907
I've tried taking the graphics card out and waiting for the mobo error beeps, but none came.

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I had a similar issue when I messed around with dual boot. As far as I remember, simply running chkdsk a few times on the disk "fixed" it, so that I could get into Vista.

But yeah, it might be something else entirely of course, as you haven't done anything similar. When loading safe mode, does the list of stuff it loads appear, or is it just instantly black?

When I try to start in safe mode it gives me a black screen aswell, the only difference is that i can see my mouse pointer with a dark black screen. I've also tried resetting bios setting to their original settings. Is there a way I can run a full system restore even though i cant enter windows or safe mode? I have the original discs. Also another thing, everything in the computer starts up and runs, except the 2 fans that came stock with my computer case. Could this mean its the power supply? Maybe its preventing my graphics card from starting? Or maybe it's windows itself thats messed up. Any further input would be greatly appreciated.

Try booting off the CD, if that works then it's a problem with your Windows installation, if not then it's likely hardware.

Have you force restarted?

Once there was an energy outage while I was reading some stuff, and when the energy came back, I had that very same problem. Turned up the energy outage messed up with Vista's files, and Vista would only show the loading part, no orb, even in safe mode.
The majority of files were recovered using my spare Ubuntu LiveCD I've got here =P, and then I just bought a new HD as the old one wasn't enough for that time...

Why don't you try to boot off the CD, as vaccination suggested? If it works, your Vista installation was messed up, if it doesn't, it's a hardware failure, like faulty HD or RAM.

If you have your Vista DVD, boot from it and click "Repair your computer".
Try the automatic repair option. If that doesn't work, the try a system restore from the DVD.

I've tried putting the disc in and repairing, but its like ignoring the disc. I went to bios and made sure the disc was the first thing to boot but its just not booting.

I guess its a good time to update to a 1T HDD  :l . Another question, if i wanted to test if it was all the HDD's fault, a friend of mine has a PC with basically the same spec's as me, could i take his HDD and test it in my pc? I just dont wanna lay $100+ down to just find out it wasnt the problem. Thanks for all the input so far 

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Originally posted by Supa907
I've tried putting the disc in and repairing, but its like ignoring the disc. I went to bios and made sure the disc was the first thing to boot but its just not booting.

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Originally posted by Supa907
if i wanted to test if it was all the HDD's fault, a friend of mine has a PC with basically the same spec's as me, could i take his HDD and test it in my pc?

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Well, after testing to see if my video card worked (which it does) in a friends PC, i went out and bought a brand new 1T Hard Drive. I secured the hard drive in place in my pc, hooked up the SATA and power cables, and turned my PC on hoping to see a setup wizard of such.

Instead i was greeted by a "No hard drive inserted please insert one" message of the sort. i went into my Bios and it didn't show a hard drive installed even though it was spinning. I restarted again and went into Bios to now find that it had detected my Hard Drive, so i exited Bios and tried to set it up hoping it would fix my problem, but then again it said it couldn't find the hard drive. I tried going in again and connecting different SATA cables to the drive, but the same message every time, my mobo is detecting the drive on and off just like it has been doing with my old HDD, I'm thinking the Mother Board is busted.

Input?

..Have you installed an OS on your new HDD yet? The bios doesn't just come up with a "wizard" when you put in a blank HDD =p

quote:

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Originally posted by Supa907
I guess its a good time to update to a 1T HDD  :l . Another question, if i wanted to test if it was all the HDD's fault, a friend of mine has a PC with basically the same spec's as me, could i take his HDD and test it in my pc? I just dont wanna lay $100+ down to just find out it wasnt the problem. Thanks for all the input so far 

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Originally posted by Supa907
Instead i was greeted by a "No hard drive inserted please insert one" message of the sort. i went into my Bios and it didn't show a hard drive installed even though it was spinning. I restarted again and went into Bios to now find that it had detected my Hard Drive, so i exited Bios and tried to set it up hoping it would fix my problem, but then again it said it couldn't find the hard drive. I tried going in again and connecting different SATA cables to the drive, but the same message every time, my mobo is detecting the drive on and off just like it has been doing with my old HDD, I'm thinking the Mother Board is busted.

Input?

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Originally posted by Phillip
Your motherboard is perfectly fine. This is what should be happening.

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Originally posted by Supa907
my mobo is detecting the drive on and off

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I know what he said but to be honest I am assuming he doesn't know much about what he is doing (which is why he is asking here) and I have given him my response. Once he finally gets the OS installed I doubt he will have any more issues.

What I think what he is talking about is he got the error message "Reboot and select proper boot device, or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key". He reboots and hops into the bios and finds that his drive is connected. He now exits the bios and gets the same error message "Reboot and select proper boot device, or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key".

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Originally posted by vaccination
..Have you installed an OS on your new HDD yet? The bios doesn't just come up with a "wizard" when you put in a blank HDD =p

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Originally posted by blessedguy

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Originally posted by vaccination
..Have you installed an OS on your new HDD yet? The bios doesn't just come up with a "wizard" when you put in a blank HDD =p

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But it comes up with a "No Operational System currently installed" message

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Originally posted by Phillip
"Reboot and select proper boot device, or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key"

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Originally posted by Phillip

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Originally posted by blessedguy

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Originally posted by vaccination
..Have you installed an OS on your new HDD yet? The bios doesn't just come up with a "wizard" when you put in a blank HDD =p

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But it comes up with a "No Operational System currently installed" message

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Actually it comes up with

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Originally posted by Phillip
"Reboot and select proper boot device, or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key"

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Well, i got my Vista installed on the new hard drive, guess one of the SATA cables finally got the mobo to recognize it, but here's the strange part.

After windows installed I booted up my mobo's driver CD, it installed properly, and  went through a few restarts. After that was finish I proceeded to install my graphics card (Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX) drivers, it installed succesfully, and when it was finished I proceeded to change the settings to my monitor's native resolution (1440x900) so everything wasn't scrunched up. To my dismay I found that the monitor went black after the resolution was set to that, and it revered back to its scrunched up size after the 10 second "would you like to accept these changes?" screen.

I then went to the Nvidia website and downloaded the newest drivers for my video card hoping it would fix it. The download finished and I ran the drivers, it was successful and my computer restarted, it loaded into my desktop with my monitors native resolution, and after about 15 seconds the monitor flickered and went black exactly like my past problem.

I tried restarting and i was hit with the exact same 100% identical problem. I thought it might have been the graphics card, but I tried putting my friends card which was practically identical to mine (both 9800GTX) into my system a few days back when i was testing some parts and it had the same black screen. We also tested 4 different monitors and had the same problem. My Bios detects my 4 gigs of ram, and I don't think think my pc can even start without my processor, so it just leads me to believe its all the motherboards fault.

So, whats your input before i order a new mobo off Newegg tonight?

Sorry for the wall of text. 

Erm, if it was a mobo fault, you wouldn't even start  the PC (in most/all cases)

The problem is the fact that either you monitor doesn't support that resolution (not likely if you have used it at that setting before) or that the graphics card is not capable of displaying it (although I don't think it'd give the option). It may be a problem with the driver and the version of Windows you are using. Install any updates available from Nvidia (you may even need to do a lot of searching to get the right drivers [My default sound and other drivers are actually part of the Nvidia Ethernet drivers... go figure])

What sort of monitor do you have..?

do you use DVI or the normal connection on your video card?