unable to boot my windows xp suddenly

hi all,
day before yesterday, i turned on my desktop, the monitor light turned
green, black screen with the blinking cursor at the top left..
nothing after that..I unplugged everthing, waited and then plugged
everything back in..thinking it was a glitch..(we are here in Florida, lots
of lightening storms,especially this time of year, Hurricane season.)
kept trying to restart, nothing.
I called Gateway, they had me reboot from cd..that worked..i shutdown,
restarted,shutdown, restarted etc.. no problem after that.. hung up from them
and they said call back if I continue to have a problem.

just to note , we have never had this problem before, we have been here for
almost 10years. we have surge protecters also.
Today, we had another lightening storm, i came in as usual unplugged
everything waiting for the storm to pass..
i turned the desktop back on and back to no response, black screen,blinking
cursor at the top left of the screen, so i rebooted from the disc as before
and am back using the computer, and online, no problem.

I have ran spyware as usual and have norton antivirus, do weekly maintenance
, nothing that i can see..I have always found answers here at this newsgroup
and I know I will get lucky again..

I would love it someone could help, or direct me to the right newsgroup for
some quick help.
this pc is windows xp Home Ed.SP2, all updated monthly via windows update,
i have about 75% free space....
if i left anything out , let me know.

many thanks in advance,
Rose in Florida


--
"Have a Great Day"

Rose, I had the same problem with a Dell 8400 after a power blackout/surge.
Just like you, I experienced an intermittent non boot with a flashing cursor
on the monitor. Eventually my computer wouldn't boot at all. Dell replaced
the motherboard and power supply but the problem started again a few weeks
later. Two out of four RAM modules were subsequently found to be faulty and
were replaced. Now it's fine.

It passed all Dell diagnostics during the intermittent failure stage. I
didn't however run Memtest 86+. I suggest you run this test.




"Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
news:70064204-7899-492D-837A-...
> hi all,
> day before yesterday, i turned on my desktop, the monitor light turned
> green, black screen with the blinking cursor at the top left..
> nothing after that..I unplugged everthing, waited and then plugged
> everything back in..thinking it was a glitch..(we are here in Florida,
> lots
> of lightening storms,especially this time of year, Hurricane season.)
> kept trying to restart, nothing.
> I called Gateway, they had me reboot from cd..that worked..i shutdown,
> restarted,shutdown, restarted etc.. no problem after that.. hung up from
> them
> and they said call back if I continue to have a problem.
>
> just to note , we have never had this problem before, we have been here
> for
> almost 10years. we have surge protecters also.
> Today, we had another lightening storm, i came in as usual unplugged
> everything waiting for the storm to pass..
> i turned the desktop back on and back to no response, black
> screen,blinking
> cursor at the top left of the screen, so i rebooted from the disc as
> before
> and am back using the computer, and online, no problem.
>
> I have ran spyware as usual and have norton antivirus, do weekly
> maintenance
> , nothing that i can see..I have always found answers here at this
> newsgroup
> and I know I will get lucky again..
>
> I would love it someone could help, or direct me to the right newsgroup
> for
> some quick help.
> this pc is windows xp Home Ed.SP2, all updated monthly via windows
> update,
> i have about 75% free space....
> if i left anything out , let me know.
>
> many thanks in advance,
> Rose in Florida
>
>
> --
> "Have a Great Day"

Hi Brian,
how do i run that test Memtest 86+ ?

many thanks, Rose
--
"Have a Great Day"


"Brian K" wrote:

> Rose, I had the same problem with a Dell 8400 after a power blackout/surge.
> Just like you, I experienced an intermittent non boot with a flashing cursor
> on the monitor. Eventually my computer wouldn't boot at all. Dell replaced
> the motherboard and power supply but the problem started again a few weeks
> later. Two out of four RAM modules were subsequently found to be faulty and
> were replaced. Now it's fine.
>
> It passed all Dell diagnostics during the intermittent failure stage. I
> didn't however run Memtest 86+. I suggest you run this test.
>
>
>
>
> "Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
> news:70064204-7899-492D-837A-...
> > hi all,
> > day before yesterday, i turned on my desktop, the monitor light turned
> > green, black screen with the blinking cursor at the top left..
> > nothing after that..I unplugged everthing, waited and then plugged
> > everything back in..thinking it was a glitch..(we are here in Florida,
> > lots
> > of lightening storms,especially this time of year, Hurricane season.)
> > kept trying to restart, nothing.
> > I called Gateway, they had me reboot from cd..that worked..i shutdown,
> > restarted,shutdown, restarted etc.. no problem after that.. hung up from
> > them
> > and they said call back if I continue to have a problem.
> >
> > just to note , we have never had this problem before, we have been here
> > for
> > almost 10years. we have surge protecters also.
> > Today, we had another lightening storm, i came in as usual unplugged
> > everything waiting for the storm to pass..
> > i turned the desktop back on and back to no response, black
> > screen,blinking
> > cursor at the top left of the screen, so i rebooted from the disc as
> > before
> > and am back using the computer, and online, no problem.
> >
> > I have ran spyware as usual and have norton antivirus, do weekly
> > maintenance
> > , nothing that i can see..I have always found answers here at this
> > newsgroup
> > and I know I will get lucky again..
> >
> > I would love it someone could help, or direct me to the right newsgroup
> > for
> > some quick help.
> > this pc is windows xp Home Ed.SP2, all updated monthly via windows
> > update,
> > i have about 75% free space....
> > if i left anything out , let me know.
> >
> > many thanks in advance,
> > Rose in Florida
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Have a Great Day"
>
>
>

http://www.memtest.org/

You should let it run overnight as sometimes errors don't show on the first
few runs.



"Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
news:0E9E55A5-AECC-4838-8DDE-...
> Hi Brian,
> how do i run that test Memtest 86+ ?
>
> many thanks, Rose
> --
> "Have a Great Day"
>
>
>

a.. Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)

Download this one from the web page. Unzip and burn the ISO to CD.

i am still having the same problem, the only other way i can boot my pc is
when i manually start the pc the black screen appears with the white blinking
cursor at the top left, I push Ctrl+Alt+Delete and then windows opens up and
loads fine..

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this is happening and what i can
further do to fix it?
(windows xp sp2 home edition)

i appreciate any further help please,

--
"Have a Great Day"


"Brian K" wrote:

> a.. Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)
>
> Download this one from the web page. Unzip and burn the ISO to CD.
>
>
>

here is an update, I am still getting the Black Screen with the cursor
blinking at the top left of the screen, could someone please give me some
direction as what to do?
I have read and read and still can not find an answer.
I have run spyware and Norton numerous times, nothing there.
So many thanks for any help,
Rose
--
"Have a Great Day"


"Florida Gal " wrote:

> hi all,
> day before yesterday, i turned on my desktop, the monitor light turned
> green, black screen with the blinking cursor at the top left..
> nothing after that..I unplugged everthing, waited and then plugged
> everything back in..thinking it was a glitch..(we are here in Florida, lots
> of lightening storms,especially this time of year, Hurricane season.)
> kept trying to restart, nothing.
> I called Gateway, they had me reboot from cd..that worked..i shutdown,
> restarted,shutdown, restarted etc.. no problem after that.. hung up from them
> and they said call back if I continue to have a problem.
>
> just to note , we have never had this problem before, we have been here for
> almost 10years. we have surge protecters also.
> Today, we had another lightening storm, i came in as usual unplugged
> everything waiting for the storm to pass..
> i turned the desktop back on and back to no response, black screen,blinking
> cursor at the top left of the screen, so i rebooted from the disc as before
> and am back using the computer, and online, no problem.
>
> I have ran spyware as usual and have norton antivirus, do weekly maintenance
> , nothing that i can see..I have always found answers here at this newsgroup
> and I know I will get lucky again..
>
> I would love it someone could help, or direct me to the right newsgroup for
> some quick help.
> this pc is windows xp Home Ed.SP2, all updated monthly via windows update,
> i have about 75% free space....
> if i left anything out , let me know.
>
> many thanks in advance,
> Rose in Florida
>
>
> --
> "Have a Great Day"

Rose, did you run Memtest 86+ overnight?


"Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
news:3A969CCE-4857-4CF2-8A80-...
> here is an update, I am still getting the Black Screen with the cursor
> blinking at the top left of the screen, could someone please give me some
> direction as what to do?
> I have read and read and still can not find an answer.
> I have run spyware and Norton numerous times, nothing there.
> So many thanks for any help,
> Rose
> --

Hey Brian, no, i was abit afraid to do it, because i felt you had not.

but at this point, We are getting pretty frustrated ..I will attempt that
again ..I was on the phone with Gtwy most of the morning with no resolve.

I ran Norton again, spyware, and did PC Doctor and the Gateway scan on the
hard drive, scan disk for errors..nothing..or something it is not showing..I
have been at it most of the day.
Many thanks for your continued help, I will respond back tomorrow

Rose


--
"Have a Great Day"


"Brian K" wrote:

> Rose, did you run Memtest 86+ overnight?
>
>
> "Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
> news:3A969CCE-4857-4CF2-8A80-...
> > here is an update, I am still getting the Black Screen with the cursor
> > blinking at the top left of the screen, could someone please give me some
> > direction as what to do?
> > I have read and read and still can not find an answer.
> > I have run spyware and Norton numerous times, nothing there.
> > So many thanks for any help,
> > Rose
> > --
>
>
>

I didn't run Memtest86+ on my computer because I stupidly didn't suspect a
RAM problem as the Dell diagnostics were OK. I've run Memtest86+ several
times on friends computers since I've found that Memtest86+ is a better test
than the Dell diagnostics. It can't damage your computer. Sometimes you get
an error result in a few minutes and you can then terminate the test.

I strongly suspect a hardware problem with your computer.



"Florida Gal " <> wrote in message
news:5B1D413C-06AE-40C8-9C16-...
> Hey Brian, no, i was abit afraid to do it, because i felt you had not.
>
> but at this point, We are getting pretty frustrated ..I will attempt that
> again ..I was on the phone with Gtwy most of the morning with no resolve.
>
> I ran Norton again, spyware, and did PC Doctor and the Gateway scan on the
> hard drive, scan disk for errors..nothing..or something it is not
> showing..I
> have been at it most of the day.
> Many thanks for your continued help, I will respond back tomorrow
>
> Rose