Computer asplode

Post by **Grimmie** » August 26th, 2007, 19:14

halp.

Uh. Steam possibly killed my PC.
I got the iD software pack a while ago and installed the whole catalogue. I had a few errors with a .dll file in the steam folder called dbghelp.dll when the client tried to update. There was little help on the internet. Deleting the file seemed to allow steam to update properly and write a new copy of the .dll.

I had some trouble with it again a while back and moved the steamapps folder to one side, un/reinstalled steam and put the steamapps folder back. Since then I've had a few problems with steam making my computer hang (which required a manual restart) or take forever to start up.

After rebooting following a hang this morning my computer refused to start up. It issued two quick beeps followed by three shorter beeps, in a sequence of five, and did nothing. No activity. The CD drive (empty) made a little noise, but I dont think it has anything to do with that.

I reseated one of the pieces of RAM and panicked briefly at berk. He checked my motherboard doohicky and found out that five beeps means.. Uh, not a lot. I went to do a complete uninstall of steam (having backed up save games) through add/remove programs, thinking I would get rid of Doom III to begin with. Computer hung when I clicked 'remove'.

Reset computer. Five beeps.
Reseated ram. Nothing. Five beeps.

Opened up side, de-dusted, fiddled with bits, got rage.
Nothing. Five beeps.

Posting from another computer.
If people can reply here (or PM me with a number I can call them on for techie support) then I would be mega grateful. Anyone who gets it fixed will have their food bill at the bash waivered, or will be supplied with fondant fancies, or something. I dunno.

tl;dr - HALP. COMPUTAR R BROEK

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » August 26th, 2007, 19:41

Rip out everything.

Start with just mobo, cpu, ram (if more than one stick present, try each individually) and a graphics card.

Hopefully something will happen.

If not, clear the CMOS and start again.

If still beepage, try other parts in it, or try your parts in another machine to find the culprit.

A reboot may have caused A Serious Fuckup somewhere, but that's normally HDD related.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 26th, 2007, 19:54

what buzz said.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 26th, 2007, 20:30

Fear · Post by **Fear** » August 26th, 2007, 20:41

Quite a few of my call outs for 'computer wont boot' issues have been down to a usb pen drive being connected.

Be sure you haven't got one of these plugged in.

Post by **deject** » August 26th, 2007, 20:49

Also, if nothing above decides to fix it, you can also try re-seating your CPU.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 26th, 2007, 20:50

Clearing the cmos seems to have fixed.

Anhamgrimmar · Post by **Anhamgrimmar** » August 26th, 2007, 22:01

i was hoping there was proflan/grimmiepc/asplosion related hijinks in the offing then....sigh....