Troubleshooting Common problems
People need to isolate and understand the technical or mechanical difficulties that can occur with computers. This results in quite a long list of problems to solve. Most people are not particularly learned in these areas of new technology, so a computer specialist, often called a geek, needs to fix the problem and attach a high price tag to the job. If you nderstand some of the more common causes of computer difficulties, frequently you can cure the problem yourself.
Below is a list of common problems experienced while assembling a PC. Please check the list which could have the possible solution to your problems.
1: The PC does not boot, the power and HDD LED does not come on, there is no display on monitor.
Solution: Check that your main power cable is plugged into the ATX power supply. Make sure you have connected the ATX power connector to the motherboard. Check if the cable for the power switch at front of the PC is connected to the correct pins on the motherboard.
2: The power LED comes on but the PC does not boot, there is no display on monitor.
Solution: Check if the processor is firmly into the socket. Check CPU jumpers to verify if CPU frequency is correctly set.
3: The PC does not boot, but is beeping.
Solution: Different BIOS manufacturers use various number of beeps to indicate faults with various hardware. In an Award BIOS motherboard you will get following beeps:
1 long 2 short: Graphics card is not securely into place, or faulty.
1 long 3 short: Graphics card is not securely into place, or faulty video memory.
Continuous beeps: No memory, or memory not securely into place, or could be faulty.
Continuous high/low beeps: No CPU, or CPU not securely into place, or could be faulty.
Please refer to your motherboard manual to confirm what the beeps are trying to tell you.
4: The PC boots but the CPU speed is incorrect.
Solution: The CPU frequency jumper setting is incorrect. Refer to your motherboard manual to set it correctly.
5: The HDD is not being detected by the BIOS.
Solution: Check if you connected the IDE cable to the motherboard correctly, is pin 1 on the IDE cable connected to pin 1 on the IDE sockets on both motherboard connector and HDD connector. Check if the HDD jumper is set to master and any other device sharing the same cable is set to slave.
6: I can not access my CD/DVD-ROM in DOS mode, hence can not install Windows.
Solution: CD/DVD-ROM device driver is not installed. Install the manufacturer supplied device driver. If you do not have a device driver disk, you can use the windows boot disk which will provide access to your CD/DVD-ROM, so that you can install Windows.
Hard Disk Drive Setup using Fdisk
Hard Disk Drive Setup - Partition and Format.
Before a new hard disk can be used it needs to be setup. This involves partitioning and formatting the hard disk. Windows 98 or ME boot disk contains the required software to perform this procedure. FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM are the files required in your bootable floppy disk. Start the partition and format procedure by booting your PC using a Windows boot disk. Make sure you set the BIOS so that the boot sequence is set to detect the floppy disk first. If your system has no problems booting you will be presented with a Windows boot disk menu. This gives you the option to start the system with or without CD-ROM support. At this stage you do not need the CD-ROM support, so choose the option to boot without CD-ROM support. You should end up in the MS DOS prompt A: (A drive). From A: command prompt type fdisk.
You will be presented with following message:
Choose "Y" to enable large disk support.You will now be presented with the FDISK main menu as shown below.
From the menu, choose option 1 - Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive. Another menu will present the following options.
Choose option 1 - Create primary DOS Partition. FDISK verifies the integrity of your drive and will ask you if want to use the maximum available size of your hard disk to create the primary partition and set it active. To keep things simple we will create one large partition. Choose "Y" to use maximum available space. When the partition has been created successfully you will be notified by the system. Your drive is now known as C: (C drive). Press "Esc" to return to the menu. Press "Esc" again to exit FDISK. You need to restart your system for the changes to take affect. Leave boot disk in the drive.When the system reboots, choose start without CD-ROM from the boot disk menu. While booting from floppy disk you might get error message like "Invalid media type reading drive C" this is OK for this stage as the hard disk is not formatted.
From A: command prompt type format c:You will get a message saying "WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST. Proceed with Format (Y/N)?".
Don't worry about the message as you do not have any data in the new hard disk. Choose "Y". The format will proceed and would show you a progress indicator. The time it takes to format a hard disk depends on the size and speed of the drive. This could be around 5-30 minutes. Once the format is complete you need to reset your system. You are now ready to install an operating system.
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