old computer help

**skidooridr600** · 12-01-2002, 07:28 PM

i have an old acer computer. When i boot it up, it shows this acer bios screen and it shows 16000kb good and then at the bottom it says enter setup, ctrl_alt_esc and it just stops at that screen. Whats wrong with this? shouldn't it move on and boot from a drive, such as the a: drive?

thanks for your help!

**muisejt** · 12-01-2002, 07:40 PM

pressing [Esc] here should clear that splash screen showing you the CPU speed and IDE devices, there may be an error message at the bottom of this screen

**skidooridr600** · 12-01-2002, 09:44 PM

its not a splash screen acutally. the splash screen doesn't come up anymore. it say to enter set up by ctrl_alt_esc and if you wait too long it will just freeze up

**BlueOval** · 12-02-2002, 03:12 AM

Do you hear any beeps? If so, refer to your mobo manual or the manuf.'s website. Do your CPU fan and HDD spin up? If not you may be in deep s**t. If they do, remove everything except the CPU/HSF, 1 stick of RAM, the vid card and the PSU. If it still won't POST one of these may be to blame. Have you OC'd the sys at all? If so, try backing down and doublecheck the jumpers/dip switches to make sure that the clock mult., FSB and voltage are all set to manuf.'s specs. Good luck.

**Mechanic** · 12-02-2002, 07:44 AM

It sounds like the Bios is asking you to enter it by pressing control-Alt&escape at the same time. It could be that the battery on the motherboard is dead.

**skidooridr600** · 12-02-2002, 06:12 PM

I do hear one beep. It always did one beep though. My hard drive, and cd-rom don't start up, but my floppy drive does. I don't have a fan for it so im not sure. I have not overclocked it at all. It will only boot with two sticks of ram otherwise it won't even get to the bios. hmmmm

**tuck2040** · 12-02-2002, 07:19 PM

I am guessing this system is really old isn't it. The clue here comes from the ' It will only boot with two sticks of ram otherwise it won't even get to the bios.'. Chances are this means that the ram sticks you have are Simms, which have to be installed in pairs or they won't work. If the system uses Simms then it sure is old.

Now this may seem like a stupid question but have you tried pressing Ctrl-Alt-Esc like it tells you to?

**skidooridr600** · 12-02-2002, 07:52 PM

Yes i have tried that. It just goes into the bios settings. This is a computer from 1995. I bought it for $2200+ lol. It has a speedy p133 and 16mb of ram. It also has a MASIVE 1.5gb hd, heh. People used to ask me why I need all that space, heh. Anyways, yes it does use simms. Thanks for all your help guys, any other ideas?

**LordOPain** · 12-02-2002, 09:02 PM

Originally posted by Mechanic
It sounds like the Bios is asking you to enter it by pressing control-Alt&escape at the same time. It could be that the battery on the motherboard is dead.

i agree, i think its asking you to fix an error in the bios setup..

the bios might need to be cleared as well and reset..

hopefully its a pnp bios so no exclusive parameters will need to be entered..

**skidooridr600** · 12-02-2002, 10:01 PM

I changed batteries. There isn't really a bios reset jumper or anything so i just took the battery out over night. how would i tell if it pnp?

**Mechanic** · 12-03-2002, 08:42 AM

Try entering the bios and setting up the HD and other drives in the first section of the bios. If the HD does not show up in the bios it won't boot.

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