Need help, strange PC behavior, no go to desktop

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

Hi,
This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
sure. Will check it later.
Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts
to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
mode.
What I tried prior to this post:
pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp
pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting
c drive NTFS.

Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.

At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated.
Thanks,
Al

[Ext User(Flasherly@live.com)]

On Jan 22, 7:16 am, "~AlicGinnis~" <a...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts
> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
> mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp
> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting
> c drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.d
>
> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated.
> Thanks,
> Al

Software<>hardware interaction thingy...one where the boot log may
offer insight as to where, what, or how far XP cares go. With that
memory it's stinkin' rank to put more than 98 on it, although I built
a slew computers, probably 5 or more years ago, for an office I was at
recently. Still running peachy, someone had updated them to XP, and
too bad at all with 512M. Asked me for a proposal when I started
muttering about USB compliancy issues with a 16G thumb drive I'd
brought, (while choking the power out of a hub), what it would take
for a hardware e$timation to redo everything up to fancy, he'd submit
and get approved by some commissioners. Does and runs what you need
to do, with a quick once over the staff -- nothing, said I. (And he
knows I don't like working on HPs, or whatever else I didn't build).

[Ext User(Flasherly@live.com)]

On Jan 22, 7:16 am, "~AlicGinnis~" <a...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts
> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
> mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp
> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting
> c drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.d
>
> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated.
> Thanks,
> Al

Software<>hardware interaction thingy...one where the boot log may
offer insight as to where, what, or how far XP cares go. With that
memory it's stinkin' rank to put more than 98 on it, although I built
a slew computers, probably 5 or more years ago, for an office I was at
recently. Still running peachy, someone had updated them to XP, and
too bad at all with 512M. Asked me for a proposal when I started
muttering about USB compliancy issues with a 16G thumb drive I'd
brought, (while choking the power out of a hub), what it would take
for a hardware e$timation to redo everything up to fancy, he'd submit
and get approved by some commissioners. Does and runs what you need
to do, with a quick once over the staff -- nothing, said I. (And he
knows I don't like working on HPs, or whatever else I didn't build).

[Ext User(JR Weiss)]

"~AlicGinnis~" <alik@nowhere.com> wrote...
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts to
> load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe mode.

Might be a bad hard drive.

Try fdisk /mbr

Then try the mfgr's HD diagnostic, if you can identify the drive.

Then try Spinrite (www.grc.com).

Then try a replacement HD.

[Ext User(JR Weiss)]

"~AlicGinnis~" <alik@nowhere.com> wrote...
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts to
> load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe mode.

Might be a bad hard drive.

Try fdisk /mbr

Then try the mfgr's HD diagnostic, if you can identify the drive.

Then try Spinrite (www.grc.com).

Then try a replacement HD.

[Ext User(do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com)]

> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts
> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
> mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp
> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting
> c drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.

All that but you didn't first measure voltages (+12V, +3.3V, +5V, and
Vcore) and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic?

[Ext User(do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com)]

> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig hard
> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
> sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it starts
> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
> mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp
> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting
> c drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.

All that but you didn't first measure voltages (+12V, +3.3V, +5V, and
Vcore) and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic?

[Ext User(Marty)]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:16:28 -0500, ~AlicGinnis~ wrote:

> Hi,
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same
> in Safe mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti
> mal ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same
> problem. XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in
> screen. 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far
> as finishing formatting the drive, then reboots. From a dos prompt
> zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp pro creating
> new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom. Tried with
> xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting c
> drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>
> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated. Thanks,
> Al

My sister's Pavillion had the *exact same* symptoms. The motherboard
capacitors had failed.

[Ext User(Marty)]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:16:28 -0500, ~AlicGinnis~ wrote:

> Hi,
> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same
> in Safe mode.
> What I tried prior to this post:
> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti
> mal ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same
> problem. XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in
> screen. 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far
> as finishing formatting the drive, then reboots. From a dos prompt
> zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp pro creating
> new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom. Tried with
> xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting c
> drive NTFS.
>
> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>
> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated. Thanks,
> Al

My sister's Pavillion had the *exact same* symptoms. The motherboard
capacitors had failed.

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

hmm...
thanks.
<do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:e362a14f-7565-42ff-93ba-062ccccc86af@i18g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard
>> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
>> sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts
>> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
>> mode.
>> What I tried prior to this post:
>> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
>> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
>> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
>> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
>> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
>> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed
>> xp
>> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
>> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after
>> formatting
>> c drive NTFS.
>>
>> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>
> All that but you didn't first measure voltages (+12V, +3.3V, +5V, and
> Vcore) and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic?

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

hmm...
thanks.
<do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:e362a14f-7565-42ff-93ba-062ccccc86af@i18g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard
>> drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be dead, not
>> sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts
>> to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in Safe
>> mode.
>> What I tried prior to this post:
>> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti mal
>> ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same problem.
>> XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in screen.
>> 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far as
>> finishing formatting the drive, then reboots.
>> From a dos prompt zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed
>> xp
>> pro creating new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom.
>> Tried with xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after
>> formatting
>> c drive NTFS.
>>
>> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>
> All that but you didn't first measure voltages (+12V, +3.3V, +5V, and
> Vcore) and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic?

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

thanks for ideas, will try them over the week end.
"JR Weiss" <jrweiss@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:gla60m$sn1$1@news.motzarella.org...
> "~AlicGinnis~" <alik@nowhere.com> wrote...
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
>> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in
>> Safe mode.
>
> Might be a bad hard drive.
>
> Try fdisk /mbr
>
> Then try the mfgr's HD diagnostic, if you can identify the drive.
>
> Then try Spinrite (www.grc.com).
>
> Then try a replacement HD.
>
>

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

thanks for ideas, will try them over the week end.
"JR Weiss" <jrweiss@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:gla60m$sn1$1@news.motzarella.org...
> "~AlicGinnis~" <alik@nowhere.com> wrote...
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
>> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same in
>> Safe mode.
>
> Might be a bad hard drive.
>
> Try fdisk /mbr
>
> Then try the mfgr's HD diagnostic, if you can identify the drive.
>
> Then try Spinrite (www.grc.com).
>
> Then try a replacement HD.
>
>

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

I never even thought of that. Thanks, I'll check.

"Marty" <martywoyzak@communitymail.com> wrote in message
news:Oh5el.13508$cu.9838@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:16:28 -0500, ~AlicGinnis~ wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
>> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same
>> in Safe mode.
>> What I tried prior to this post:
>> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti
>> mal ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same
>> problem. XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in
>> screen. 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far
>> as finishing formatting the drive, then reboots. From a dos prompt
>> zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp pro creating
>> new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom. Tried with
>> xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting c
>> drive NTFS.
>>
>> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>>
>> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated. Thanks,
>> Al
>
> My sister's Pavillion had the *exact same* symptoms. The motherboard
> capacitors had failed.
>

[Ext User(~AlicGinnis~)]

I never even thought of that. Thanks, I'll check.

"Marty" <martywoyzak@communitymail.com> wrote in message
news:Oh5el.13508$cu.9838@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:16:28 -0500, ~AlicGinnis~ wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> This is a neighbor's hp pavillian circa 2000 running xp pro on 20 gig
>> hard drive with 256mb ram and 4x optical. The button battery may be
>> dead, not sure. Will check it later.
>> Symptom: Boots to logon window, then when you click on acct name, it
>> starts to load xp and then reverts to the logon screen. Does the same
>> in Safe mode.
>> What I tried prior to this post:
>> pulled the drive and put it in test bed as slave and ran various anti
>> mal ware aps, virus and trojans found and repaired. Reinstall, same
>> problem. XP repair from install CD, after repair, hung prior to log in
>> screen. 3 attempts at full install frm 3 different xp cd's. Gets as far
>> as finishing formatting the drive, then reboots. From a dos prompt
>> zeroed the hard drive with clearhdd.exe then installed xp pro creating
>> new primary partiton, etc., and after format: same symptom. Tried with
>> xp home CD and XP pro CD. Same symptom: reboots after formatting c
>> drive NTFS.
>>
>> Its not power, it runs all night without getting hot, or rebooting.
>>
>> At this point I'm at a loss, any ideas much apprediated. Thanks,
>> Al
>
> My sister's Pavillion had the *exact same* symptoms. The motherboard
> capacitors had failed.
>