Good Afternoon,

My 12 year old daughter was working on her report last night. She pulled a couple of pictures from some website (she is not suppose to do that without me) and went to print the report. It would not print. When she called me to fix it, the computer was trying to install unknown hardware???? Then the idiot that I am, while I am talking to her about the importance of not googling pics without me being there, decides to reboot the computer. I know better than to do this but..... was having a bad day. Let me add that when I asked she said that she got a message from panda but it wasn't red so she didn't think she needed to let me know. I am not sure I am posting to the right forum, but here is my info:

I am running Win XP on a Compaq presario 3045a. All updates are loaded. I run Panda Antivirus + Firewall 2008. It is also current and ran clean 2 or 3 days ago. When I boot up it shows the black screen with Compaq in red. It doesn't go past that screen. I have tried F8 to go into safe mode and F10 for rom based setup without success. Frankly I have tried all F keys and nothing works. The cd drive does read but it doesn't load anything. I have tried the Panda install disk (hoping I could scan for virus), Compaq disks and XP Home edition disks. It did not work. I also tried to use an external cd rom drive knowing it probably wouldn't work and I was right. Let me add that I have an external floppy if necessary to fix this problem.

Thank you so much,

Tricia

Hi and welcome to Bleepingcomputer.
What operating system are you using it is XP am I correct since you posted it in the Xp forum?
Try going into safe mode by using the F8 method. If you have any trouble booting in safe mode please read this tutorial:
Safe mode

Safe mode allows you to get into Windows to remove any drivers or software which you recently installed. Do you remeber any recent programs that you installed that might of caused this?
If you can't think of any recently-installed software that could have caused it, then try takeing it to a repair shop or something like that and see if anyone can fix it. This could also be a hard drive failure. Try taping F1 and F8 key again and see if that works, I know that you tried all the F keys but just try it again, you never know...

read here for some additional information: http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6035_102-0.htm...ssageID=1348545
I hope I have helped you

Regards,
Extremeboy

I am running XP SP2.

No new programs that i know of. Does it sound reasonable to try to make a boot disk from my husbands computer? I am desperate to get it working (like everyone else) and when I googled the problem, I saw it on another website. But, I used bleeping computers a couple of years ago under my friends account and you guys are fabulous. I did not want to try someones elses suggestions I would rather get your suggestions.

I did try the F8 and F1 keys separately (I shut down in between the trys) with no luck. I am hoping I don't have to take it in for repairs. I am new to this area and would have to send it through the mail to get it to the place that put in my new hard drive last year. I have had bad experiences with repair places. Frankly I always choose the idiots or rather they think I am the idiot. LOL

Thanks again,

Tricia

Can you access the Recovery Console on an XP install CD?

Louis

No it looks like it reads the disk... ie: led lights flash and the drive spins... but nothing pulls up. I tried with the Compaq disks and XP Home disk. After a few minutes the drive stops spinning and the lights stop flashing. The screen does not change.

Thanks,

Tricia

OK... I got it booting up. I was blowing vents with compressed air and noticed a couple of loose screws. I tightened them up. I also pulled my hard drive (the loose screws were near it) and reset it. I didn't know it was that easy to pull those in a laptop! The hard drive is a little over a year old. At any rate... it now boots to safe mode and windows. I have no idea if it had anything to do with it, but it works I got further than before. I was able to copy my files. I ran Tune up one click maintenance (all ok, no errors) and did a system restore back to friday. When running Panda virus scan it shuts down. I tried it in safe mode and windows and it did it both times. I tried to reinstall XP and it shut down during it. I think it said something about OCI compliant. It was just a couple of seconds after starting. I tried to do it with Compaq disks and it shuts down after I choose English. My knowledge is very limited.

Thank you for everything!

Tricia

Also, I don't think my fan is turning on. The computer is getting really warm. I turned it over and I didnt see it on and I don't hear it.

Thanks again,

Tricia

I would suspect that the loose screws have something to do with this problem - and that tightening them down has somehow "pinched" something inside the case.

Your initial problem sounded like an issue with the hard drive.
Now it seems that you've got problems with overheating.

I'd have to suggest taking it to a technician for a full diagnostic.

Could that message have been "OHCI compliant"?

That could indicate that the system is trying to install/boot from a network via your NIC...which, in turn , may mean that the BIOS boot options must be reset to boot from CD/DVD before you can do an install via CD.

I suspect that USASMA's advice is what I would follow.

Louis

I agree too. What Usasma said is the best option. "I'd have to suggest taking it to a technician for a full diagnostic."
Without the fan working it can be very harmful to your computer.

Extremeboy

Greetings.

I happen to be the technician working on said computer. I noticed on this paper my customer brought that the issue had been posted here, so I thought I'd include followup, diagnostics, diagnosis, ETC.

Thus far, the machine powered, posted, and booted windows. The ambient temperature on the processor was 51°C. Under stress, the temperature went to 65°C, then to 76°C. Fan activity was nil; I am again stressing the machine to see whether the fans will spin up at all, also while monitoring w/ HW Monitor & SpeedFan.

I shall continue to update this as my work progresses.

Did full teardown, regooped processor after cleaning it and cleaned the whole board.

Powered on machine; fan did indeed spin up. I will reassemble, and stress.

76°C is a bit on the high side - even for a laptop.
I wasn't able to locate any info on that particular model - but the problems with the screws suggests a "pinching" somewhere. This may have contributed to a problem with the fan spinning up. So, I'd check it again with the fan spinning to see if it reaches 76°C again. If not, then that's likely to be the problem (a sticky fan).

Other than that, I'd check the heat pipe (if so equipped) to ensure that everything is able to work (and there's nothing clogged inside of it).

I'd also run a hard drive diagnostic to make sure that no damage has been done to the hard drive. If you have a motherboard testing program, I'd run that also - just to be sure.

After a cleaning and regooping, the fan is indeed spinning, and under load from SuperPi the system temperature does not exceed 42°C. This is a prime operating temperature, and is low, if anything.

Also it should be noted that there was something interesting on this exact laptop that I hadn't seen before; an actuator lever to separate the CPU and heatsink. Interesting.

Anywho, the machine is running properly now.

RE: usasma:

I don't know whether the fan was actually spinning or not before. There was no 'squelching' that I can find, and due to the location I find it unlikely that the cable had become disconnected, pinched, etc. There was a bit of dust inside the fan, and initially it was not free spinning -- it was slow to spin before the junk had been blown out of it. There was also a layer of dust over everything inside the machine.

76° is definitely too hot for a processor -- even a mobile P4. I had an IBM here a few days ago that was passing 194F and 201F (Dual-core).

Not the first time I have had issues like this on laptops, and with the exception of the above, I've fixed the problem each time. In the above case, Lenovo techs fixed it, since it was under warranty.