VERY odd boot issue after BIOS update

Questions that don't belong in the other forums.
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JLimelight
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Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2013 10:38 pm

Well, first and foremost, hello all! New to the forum, I've lurked a while, but this is the first time I've really needed to post to ask for help, lol.

So, Here's my issue: I've an old HP pre-fab that I've been tinkering with on my own for a while now, just sort of a pet project. I don't have money at the moment to build myself a proper rig, so this is what I have at the moment.

It as an ASUSTek Amberine M mobo with Pheonix BIOS. I have an AMD Athalon 64 2.2 Ghz CPU I'm going to swap in to replace the AMD Sempron 3200+ that's in the thing, and I did my homework, they both are made for Socket 939 and either is compatible with the mobo. I figured I'd update my BIOS first, as I've heard this is a good rule of thumb when swapping out CPUs. On that mindset, I decided to check HP's website, and lo and behold, they have BIOS Rev. 3.15 available for the system (It's old, runs XP Home Edition Ser. Pack 3.)

It tells me all I need to do is run the .exe, follow the on-screen prompts exactly, and I will be fine. So I do this, and now I have this odd boot issue. Where as before it would show a command prompt in the upper left corner of the screen for a few moments before going to the Windows XP boot screen, it shows the prompt, then about center screen a few lines down a green/blue "e" pops up on a single character grey background (no screencap or picture available, I'm sorry.)

It will just stay that way no matter what, and the only solution I have at the moment is immediately when I power up the PC, I hit F10, at which point the "Please remove any media from the CD-ROM or Floppy Drives and then hit any key" comes up, at which point, I hit enter, and the Windows XP boot screen will then come up and the computer boots as normal.

Anyone have ANY earthly idea what's going on with my PC and how to fix it? Many thanks!

- J Lime.
edwin
The Hardware Archivist
Posts: 6286
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Netherlands
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Redo that bios update and this time make sure you are logged in as someone with Administrator rights.

Another issue you may suffer from is bad capacitors

http://www.badcaps.net for more info.
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
JLimelight
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2013 10:38 pm

The only user account on this computer is mine, and it's the admin account, but I'll give it another shot and post the results afterward.
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