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Journal bethanie's Journal: Calling all Tech Support!!! 20

Journal by bethanie
So I wake up this morning, and my computer sounds funny. OK -- try to get out of chick mode. The computer's fan sounds like it's running harder than usual. It's louder, noisier.

I had noticed that it started doing this in the wee hours. (I happen to be sleeping in the baby's room with her right now, in an effort to train her to stay there all night; it's an experiment.)

So when I opened up my computer to see what time it was -- there was just a black screen with a message scrolling on it every 10 seconds or so:

IntelUNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Realtek RTL 8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v.2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

When I hit the standby key, it turns off. When I do Ctrl-Alt-Del, it reboots. When I press the magical elf button (that is usually pressed when you close the laptop), it turns off.

When I turn it back on again, there's a very concilatory message of apology on a black screen saying that I may have changed hardware or software and fucked things up (I think I did a virus update, and installed WinZip since my last reboot -- nothing major), or that maybe it got interrupted during a restart after a power outage (that isn't what happened).

In any case, rebotting in Normal Windows mode hangs on that message (quoted above). Rebooting in Last Known Good Configuration hangs on that message. Rebooting in Safe Mode with Networking hangs on that message.

I have tried unplugging & removing the battery to give a full power re-cycle... No effect.

Right now, it's resting quietly, turned off and unplugged upstairs in its usual spot. But I don't even know enough to label its condition, whether it's emergent, critical, stable, etc.

Does ANYone have any ideas about what could be going on? The battery removal idea was the sum total of what Hubby had to suggest for me to try.

In the meantime, thank goodness we're geeks, because I have 2 other computers that I can use to access the Net to check y'all's ideas.

Thanks for your help!

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Calling all Tech Support!!! More

Calling all Tech Support!!!

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  • Step one: Go into your BIOS, as disable booting from the Network card. Also disable Power-on-from-lan or whatever it's called.

    Is your NIC on the board, or is it PCMCIA? It sounds like it's on the board.

    You might also want to update your BIOS.

    Of course, there is still a possibility that the NIC died.

    Another possibility is that your hard drive is shot, and this is much more likely. Do you have a CD burner? If so, download and burn the latest Knoppix Linux distro to a CD and see if you can boot from th

    • I think Railgunner is probably right. I don't think your BIOS magically changed to boot from LAN, but rather that the hard drive either failed physically or is otherwise no longer bootable, and you have LAN at the end of your boot order. (1-CD ROM, 2-hard drive, etc.) You should remove this from the order, anyway, as you don't have a boot server, I'm guessing. Oh, and before you freak out about the drive, even if you can't see it under Knoppix, check all your cable connections in the machine, and make sure
      • I don't think your BIOS magically changed to boot from LAN, but rather that the hard drive either failed physically or is otherwise no longer bootable, and you have LAN at the end of your boot order.

        But... when you unplugged the battery, if your CMOS battery was dead, then there is a good chance it got reset to factory defaults.

        • But... when you unplugged the battery, if your CMOS battery was dead, then there is a good chance it got reset to factory defaults.


          I don't know of anything outside of thin clients that factory default to net boot, but okay :)

        • Folks - Bad drive bearings can sound like a dying fan.

          If she recieved the option to boot windows in safe mode, or last known good configuration, then sector 1 is still live (at least when the drive is cool), and so is (at least part) of the hard drive's functions. That said, given the noise, I'm guessing the drive threw a bearing, and is not going to be salvagable after very few more boot attempts (maybe already isn't).

          Booting from a Knoppix or Ubuntu disk (or even better from a backup point of view

      • IAWTC

        Sounds like the hard drive is flaking out. Not a lot of reason for it to PXE boot, otherwise.

        What is the warranty status?

        Typically, I would pop the drive, use a USB->IDE adapter to pull the data with another machine, and proceed from there (which is either mail it in for warranty repair, or borrow or buy another drive and reinstall Windows.)
    • Her other statements about being able to choose things on the Windows boot menu implies that the disk is still bootable. That's confusing me.

      At any rate, another off the cuff guess: either the PSU is fuxored and messing with things, or perhaps the battery died for some reason and is not retaining CMOS settings anymore, thus causing them to constantly revert to default on every power down.
      • Her other statements about being able to choose things on the Windows boot menu implies that the disk is still bootable. That's confusing me.

        One explanation would be that the MBR is still OK, but the NTFS partition is wrecked.

        Booting into Knoppix will better allow Bethanie to diagnose and possibly fix the problem.

        • I just find it really, really weird because the implication of being able to get a Windows boot menu is that the system thinks everything is fine and Windows doesn't, but the error message itself implies that the actual boot process is failing, meaning it shouldn't even get to a Windows boot menu.

          I wonder if something as simple as getting a "DOS" prompt running and typing 'fdisk /mbr' wouldn't fix this? It could be a matter of a recent update or new software installation messing with things it shouldn't hav
          • I just find it really, really weird because the implication of being able to get a Windows boot menu is that the system thinks everything is fine and Windows doesn't, but the error message itself implies that the actual boot process is failing, meaning it shouldn't even get to a Windows boot menu.

            No, the Windows bootloader installs itself on the MBR. (And as a side note, this is why I always install Linux 2nd, as Window Bootloader will overwrite lilo/grub whether you want it to or not.)

            So, the bootloade

  • Look for paper or something blocking the fan.

    OW!
    • This is also a strong possibility (in addition to RailGunner's suggestion), since the system will have very freakish problems if things are overheating.

      If there WAS something blocking a vent (or where the fan is), then it should be cooled-down enough by now to try booting it again...

      Heat is NOT your computer's friend, even though your system generates a fair amount of it.
    • Obviously she's been neglecting her womanly duties and has allowed dust to build up in the fans causing a hardware problem.

      But I think Railgunner has the right idea, although to me it sounds more like a messed up bios than a dead disk. I'd start with checking the bios boot order settings and make sure all your devices are present and accounted for when it boots up. If that fails, I'd hook the hard drive up to another computer as a slave (remember to reset the jumpers) and copy all the data off of it before
  • Remove all unnecessary hardware, and start from scratch. First, put in just 1 memory card and the video card and HD. If that fails, replace the memory with another stick. If that fails, its probably the hard drive. Put a new harddrive in as the primary and the old one as the slave. Boot up windows and see if you can access the drive, if not, you may be up a creek.

    However, there is a little trick that old IT guys know. Put the harddrive in the freezer. Yeah, the freezer. Leave it there a few hours

    • However, there is a little trick that old IT guys know. Put the harddrive in the freezer. Yeah, the freezer. Leave it there a few hours and pop it back in and try again. If it works, get up on moving over important docs and stuff to someplace new. Lots of IT guys have gotten promotions for doing that simple little trick ;)

      FK is referring to something that sometimes works for drives that have fallen victim to something called "stiction." This should be the last thing you try, and only if you know the drive

      • I'll second that this is a last ditch method, usually for pulling information from a dying drive (not for actually saving the drive) before tossing it in the trash. Since this is a laptop, watch for condensation as well. Ice will melt, which is not a happy thing inside a laptop.

        Download knoppix or damn small linux iso, try booting with that and see if it can 'read' your hard drive.
  • Your copy of Windows has been hosed major time, most likely by a driver update (anti-virus for some companies runs as a driver). My suggestion is to reboot to your Windows CD, and Reinstall. For your ammusement during this trial, I offer the words to ReInstalling Windows [chebucto.ns.ca].
  • The complaint on the PXE boot is your NIC trying to find a Bootp server to get a file to launch from.

    Windows tends to do hardware detection AFTER it starts up so if a critical piece of hardware went south/a touch flakey then it could cause your lock-up. Booting to Safe Mode might get you somewhere or not.

    First off, boot the system into BIOS and check the date and time. If they're back in 1970 land then your bios got reset somehow. Either a bad CMOS backup battery or something else. There's usually a "Re

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