Major PC problem again today. I'd switched it off this morning before I went to bed, but when I switched it back on again in the evening, IT DID NOT BOOT!
Here's what happened.
1) I switched it on. Fans blew at max power for no apparent reason, buttons did not respond. Happened occasionally before but merely needed a restart by switching off power.
2) Switched off power, then on again after 35 seconds (yes I'm old school and cautious like that). Fans started gently, LEDs for Caps Lock and Scroll Lock and Num Lock flashed. Everything was normal... Except nothing happened after that. Screen went to sleep mode, PC remained in that state. Fans worked but that was all. Buttons did not respond.
3) Oh shit.
4) Repeated step 2 for 5 times to no avail.
5) Oh fuck!
6) Brought out trusty Acer laptop. Never thought I'd say this but it has become a good backup worthy of trust.
7) Watched movie during dinner. People do get hungry, you know?
8) After dinner, tried switching on PC again. Started with the motherboard's brand screen instead of the black screen with all the words that make no sense to me about masters and slaves. Finally stopped on this black screen with words on it that made no sense to me except at the bottom where it said, "CMOS Checksum Error" and "Press F11 to Boot Menu".
9) I pressed F11. Nothing happened. Looked above the error and it says "Press F1 to BIOS menu" or something very close to that.
10) I followed that instruction to enter BIOS.
11) BIOS menu. Blue screen with all the options. I didn't know what to do but the sight of the menu immediately reminded me of what happened the last time I cleaned my PC with a vacuum cleaner.
12) Turned to face my laptop which had Internet access via the Starhub MaxMobile USB modem. Went to my blog here, searched "BIOS" in the Google search box.
13) Hope shined through screen.
14) Went to my rant which described my experience on that day and found those photos I took in case it happened again.
15) Compared BIOS screens with those I see on my PC.
16) Changed the option for "Hold on Errors" to "No Errors" instead of "All Errors" and option for "Boot from other Device" to "No" from "Yes".
17) Saved and Exit.
18) Voila!
I am concerned that these changes worked. Doesn't that mean I'm getting errors while booting but I'm forcing my PC to ignore them? How's that supposed to be a good thing?
Furthermore, I'm getting my motherboard's logo screen when booting instead of the usual screen with all the texts.
So I googled this and found that I could change that by going into BIOS and enabling Quick Boot and disabling the motherboard screen. Found these two options but Quick Boot was already enabled. The second was enabled, which I changed. Now my computer appears to be back to normal again.
If I hadn't recorded those photos I'd have spent another $50 on a quick repair again, although tbh I really didn't know which options were important. I didn't actually remember what the technician had fiddled with but I did recall which screens looked familiar, hence the photos instead of actually saying what was changed.
This is interesting. I used to get around 100 views daily before the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week. Yesterday I got around 50.
This can be due to either of these reasons:
1) Google removed a lot of data (especially images) that lead to my blog from its databases.
2) There are about 50 people out there who used to visit this blog regularly, or less due to possible repeated views on the same day.
I did think about that Monetize feature but decided it's a bad decision. First, I'm not short on spare change. Second, it ruins the personal feel of this blog.
Nevertheless, this also proved that the Sonic Boom Appreciation Week was a bad idea. Doesn't mean I won't do it again though.
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