Just Curious

my dad has a 7 year old aptiva, with windows 98 that someone just gave him. about a week ago he tried to turn it on it now alls it does is just show a black screen thats it, wont start up or anything. he's gotten a new gateway already but i think he would like to salvage the old one to give to someone that doesnt have a computer. do you have any clue to what might be the problem, and how to fix it. the details i've mentioned is about all i know of the situation. any insight is welcomed. he has used this computer for about 4 years

 

I'd start by getting a 98 boot disk and examining the HD in DOS.

 

BLAZIN GUNZ,

Here is some sites to check out.

http://members.aol.com/don5408/aptiva.html

and

http://www.tweaksanlinks.com/forums/index.php

 

When you say it won't start up; do you mean nothing runs, no leds, nothing?
Might have a dead battery or bad transformer so not getting any power.

 

i'm not sure what exactly is going on, but i'll probably talk with my dad tonight and find out exactly whats going on and i'll post a reply. from what he has told me, i guess the power is on but there is no windows start up screen or anything, its just black i suppose, but i should find out more. the computer is quite old and had extensive use in a business before he got it so i'd say its just done for, but there is always hope . i was wondering if there were any viruses or trogans that could do something of this sort?

 

Is it maybe booting to DOS? Does the black screen say
C:\>
on it?

 

i'm not sure, i'll get back to u on that

 

I am wondering how long the pc had been idle prior to this time when he tried it. Was it possibly sitting out in the garage or building or someplace like that? If so I have run into a lot of onboard video's that go out after exposed to cold and what not and then fired up. Look and see if the power indicator on the monitor is green of if it is green and then turns amber, which one would for like power saving mode. This indicates no signal.


Good Luck!