When your system fails: The following procedures are used when you have a computer failure. They have been revised so an owner can possibly eliminate a problem before coming in. We do this so you understand what is happening when your computer is serviced. Check power to computer, monitor, printer. Check surge protector. Check outlet. Improperly wired outlets cause computer and surge protector failure. We have found numerous outlets with reversed hot and common wires. Even missing grounds. AC does not have a voltage polarity but does have a polarity between common and hot and it must follow thru. Surge protectors relay on this. Hardware stores usually have these testers for $5-8 and they are worth a homeowners and business owners investment. We find new buildings with reversed wires as well as schools and older homes and buildings. Electricians hire low pay unskilled helpers who do not realize the difference and importance. It is life threatening (shock hazzard) as well. You should have computers on their own circuit and not on with kitchen appliances and air conditioners or dehumidifiers, etc. Check Monitor cable to computer. Make sure it's connected tightly. Check keyboard cable to computer. NEVER plug in or out with power on. Hopefully you have your files backed up. You the owner has the responsibility as the owner. Computers die. Hard Drives die faster. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Average life of a hard drive is 2 to 3 years. That's average. Many die in 1 to 2 years. They are very intricate. If dead: determine if monitor, computer, or display card. Never assume. A defective modem, serial or parallel port or hard floppy controller can short the system and power supply. Use a wrist static strap and do the following: Pull all cards except display card. System may come to life and you might get a display although it won't boot - but you may locate the defective component. If not, substitute the display card. A loose or defective memory chip will stop the computer from displaying anything, although the power supply might start up. Pulling the power leads from the motherboard may or may not determine if the power supply is defective. Many power supplies will not start until connected to the motherboard under load. Many times, cards come loose in slot sockets. Make sure they are properly seated. Check all cables to drives. They do work loose. If the computer shows a display but doesn't boot, determine if hard drive or controller or motherboard. Try booting off a floppy disk. If it boots off floppy but not hard drive, try logging onto hard drive and do a D I R . Try booting off the hard drive and use the F5 key to stop loading config.sys and autoexec.bat. There may be a statement fouling up the operation here. Run diagnostics if you determine it will boot with no config or autoexec. Break into CMOS setup. Log all settings. You should have done this once before when you first got the system. The most important numbers are the hard drive numbers. Don't record just the type number, get the cylinders and heads and sectors. Many technicians do NOT use the right numbers deliberately. Just changing some numbers will allow it to work. If you correct it with out repartitioning and reformating, you either won't boot, or you will scramble data. This is done to make service business. Many times the battery goes dead and if the configuration is lost, even partially, you have trouble here. Partial lost settings are a sign of either a dying battery or memory conflict. A memory conflict can cause a poke to the CMOS address that scrambles the setup configuration. These are not easy to solve. They are very common. Sometimes CMOS changes and CACHE is turned on or off inadvertantly. Check this. With AMI BIOS, reset to DEFAULT and retest. Batteries last from several months to 3 to 5 years or more depending on user habbits. They are usually of the chargable type. When you do not use your computer for a week at a time, the battery discharges. Once discharging starts, they never reach full charge again. Each time it discharges, the condition worsens. Most computers have a 3/4 pin socket for an external add on battery when it does need replacing. Sometimes, you also have to move a jumper to activate the new battery and disable the old. This varies from different manufacturers. Many times the old battery must be removed from the motherboard as they do leak or cause corrusion on it. This must be done with extreme care as the circuit board is easily damaged. It it does leak, the corrosion usually destroys traces on the board, destroying the board. If you successfully boot to C, the hard drive, do the following tests. Disable booting directly to Windows. The computer is controlling you; you need to get control of the computer. Edit the autoexec.bat and put an REM in front of WIN to stop autoboot to windows. Type D I R Does it complete? Type CHKDSK Any errors? Note your available space. Hard drives slow up when more than 70-80 percent full. Type SCANDISK Any additional errors? If yes, correct and retest. Also run the surface scan test. If you get more than 1 or 2 new errors, you are in serious trouble. Stop and plan to save any unreplacable files. You did do a backup previously, right? Type MEM Log available DOS memory available out of 640K. Note total memory. If note 640 such as 639 or less, look for virus or other trouble. Your available memory to DOS should be 612K or larger. (Run MEMMAKER if not high enough). If you use double space or stacker, you are usually in trouble if you have multi media because this compression eats up valuable memory. Run MSD Note any abnormalities. Run SCAN Scan is McAfees virus program. Do not rely on any DOS, Windows Norton or PCTools virus protection that is older than 1 month. They are outdated if more than a month old. New Virus pop up every day. If your system is stable here, run DEFRAG and configure to complete. Let this run till complete. Files shatter, split up as you add and erase them. In short order, they get split enough to slow your system down. A compressed drive with doublespace or stacker or other similar utility is running at half speed anyway. The system must uncompress and recompress each file as its used or saved. Getting rid of compressing is like moving from a 486 to a Pentium or a 386 to a 486. Buy a bigger hard drive, its cheaper. Copy your config.sys and autoexec.bat to a backup name such as a.bat and C.SYS so you know which is your backup vs a program installation change. Make sure you have them properly setup. Seek help if you don't know. Windows has a built-in disaster: Screen savers. Turn them off and leave them off. Installing software into Windows with them on has crashed more computers than I can count. Many are cute but can they cause trouble. Change directory to Windows ( CD\WINDOWS ) and type the following: MD BAK Copy *.INI BACK COPY *.GRP BACK COPY *.DAT BACK This will assure you a quick restore for many windows foul ups. EDIT SYSTEM.INI and look for scrambled lines. EDIT WIN.INI and look for scrambled lines. If you see any lines with non alphabet characters, you will have to delete windows and reinstall it or seek professional help. This is where we start. We are glad to do it for you should you not feel confortable.