nothing but k's across my screen on bootup

[billwinkle 0]

just tonight while trying to boot my pc, I got a green screen filled with the letter K. It happens right after bios completes and as windows is about to load. It happened with 2 different hard drives, one win2000 the other winxp. After several attempts I finally got it to go. I know it must be hardware related but what I don't know.

system specs as follows.

Iwill 22666+ non raid

512meg micron memory

visiontek geforce3

enermax 430 watt power supply

wd 40gig 7200 hd on promise ata100 controller

wd 7gig hd on ide 0

creative dvd player

usb 2.0 controller

tdk usb 2.0 burner

ricoh 6x internal burner

network card.

 

what does it all mean???

while in bios I noticed 5 volt line was only 4.65 volts. could this be the key to my calamity?????

thanks for listening

[Sampson 0]

Strange. Looking at your hardware it does not seem to be that old. First thing I would suggest is the cmos battery may be giving out. Second thing may be crud in the keyboard that caused the letter k to think it was depressed. Third, would be the PSU depending on its age and if you have been overclocking this unit. Fourth, is the USB 2.0 driver under W2K since only yesterday did Microsoft deign to anoint what a driver officially under W2k update. Fifth, with so many drives spinning up simultaneously, one of them because of heat or age is not getting enough juice to turn it over.

My best guess - cmos battery needs replacing.

[sapiens74 0]

are they in bunches of threes?

 

if so you have a racist computer....

[billwinkle 0]

no i checked, my system has no underground affiliations(except maybe microsoft but not sure)

I must correct some items in my system since it wasnt a good idea to type after 16 hours of work.

motherboard is iwill kk266+ non raid with athlon 1.4 gig

system not overclocked.

also using usb 2.0 pci card. (do I still need to install microsofts fix?)

and not keyboard is clean nothing stuck. and prob only shows up as soon as screen leaves bios and as system starts to load windows. but before i even see the screen with load bar i get the green screen with

k typed across the whole screen row after row of stupid k's.

thanks much

[AndyFair 0]

Just a shot in the dark, but have you done a virus check?

 

AndyF

[billwinkle 0]

first thing i tried after getting able to boot. strange thing is that i had the same problem with two different boot drives. the second drive with winxp hasnt been plugged into system for over a month, yet it experienced same exact problem. I think it took 12-15 tries before i was able to fire it up.

[Davros 0]

I saw something similar once after a bios flash went bad. I was able to recover by reflashing the bios. It wasn't all k's but just some garbled stuff on the screen.

[JP- 0]

Ive seen this where the motherboard is touching the case, shorting it.

[Christianb 8]

I think everyone has given good suggestions. It does sound like something simple, but lethal.

 

You should first try looking for the obvious loose wires, (yes push down ever so lightly on the chips of all your cards and motherboard, make sure all your wires are connected firmly (electrical and data), make sure all your jumpers are on securely. Make sure your fans aren't clogged, especially the Power Supply. Remove 1 part at a time leaving all others in tact. You might find that a specific piece of hardware is failing you.

 

Why not take your PC to a friends house or to work if they'll let you and plug each part in one at a time into another system at another location (in case you have electrical issues). You might just get lucky. You'll also want to try the Raid controller, each hard drive seperately and then together

 

It could also be your Raid controller, promise makes the worst controllers. I swear why doesn't somebody make a raid controller that just emulates a single drive that you attach to the main IDE ribbon cable so the bios and OS are completely unaware of the situation.

[Christianb 8]

Out of all your hardware the most bleeding edge seems to be the USB 2.0 controller and drive. Why not uninstall them both and see if your problems subside. Did you install the windows 2000 update for USB 2.0?

Thanks,

Christian

[billwinkle 0]

seems to be working a little better today, thanks for everyones suggestions. unpluging everthing seems to have helped with 5 volt voltage, as it is now at 4.86. still having small lockups not sure where that is from. will try defrag see if it helps. also took out usb 2.0 card

question though???????????? even though I am using usb 2.0 pci card should I still instal the windows 2000 update for usb???

thanks again

[Sampson 0]

Run Windows Update and get the Windows 2000 driver.

[billwinkle 0]

update to my continuing woes. It seems that whenever I run nortons antivirus, it locks up at exactly the same file (8xuvote) which is located in temp internet files folder. also did it with pccillin online virus scanner.

Also checkdisk will only work at boot up and does not show up as a program in system tools menu. And when I try to defragment it tells me that checkdisk is scheduled to run, so I cant defrag.

Me thinks maybe bad sector on HD??

help!!!!!

[AndyFair 0]

Can you empty your Temp Internet folder from within Internet Explorer, or empty the folders manually (through Windows Explorer)?

 

What happens when you reboot, does chkdsk do its thing? Does it come up with any errors?

 

Need info!

 

AndyF

[billwinkle 0]

I tried to empty folder but it just locks up. chkdsk does run every time I reboot then hangs at 11 percent, but stupid me gets bored and walks away. On my way to the pharmacy and I will reboot and watch for errors when I get back,

thank AndyF

I will let you know then I get back in a little bit

[billwinkle 0]

was finally able to clean temp files out. on reboot chkdsk goes right to 11 percent, sits there for five minutes then system finally boots.

and tried virus scanner again and same results. locks up when it hits that same file forcing a reboot. strange thing is when i look for that file, search can't find it nor can i find it manually.

aaarrrggghhh

[ewaite 0]

Try booting into Safe mode (Hit F8 at first boot screen and select Safe Mode). If you still can't kill the file then try booting off the Win2000 CD. Select Repair from the first menu and then Recovery Console. From there, you should be able to delete any file.

[billwinkle 0]

I have tried safe mode. it locks up before loaded. Just 10 min ago while trying to fire up I got the inaccessable boot device blue screen. so it looks like its back up time for I think everything is now pointing to hard drive. Bummer is I just sent my other 40 gig in for replacement just this last monday. Identical wd 7200 ata hd. I think its becoming a pattern here. Hopefully I will be able to back up my data on another drive before this one goes poof. But first i will try the recovery console but I sure don't expect drive to last.

thanks

[billwinkle 0]

finally,,,, used western digital diag disc. it found a problem fixed it, then on reboot chkdsk finally found a bunch of corrupt files fixed those now puter is happy.

thanks to everyone for thier suggestions. you guys are great!!!!!!!!!!