PC won't post after WinXP activation

[bevills1]

Today I called Microsoft to activate WinXP, answered questions and followed instructions after which it indicated activation was successful and that I could resume using WinXP. However, the system won't even post after restart. Now when power on the system the monitor displays in the lower right corner A1 then A2 and finally A3 where it stays with no post and blank screen except for the A3 in the corner. It's WinXP Pro SP3, and motherboard is MSI Z77A-G41 motherboard with Pentium G2020 LGA 1155 CPU and 2GB Mushkin DDR3 1333 RAM if any of that is important. Can Microsoft activation kill a system, or did the new motherboard installed just yesterday die already? Does anybody have any explanation or possible fix for this odd problem? Is there a Microsoft contact I can try to fix the problem since it happened immediately following the activation?

[jagabo]

Open it up and short the "clear CMOS" jumper for 10 seconds (or remove the CMOS battery if you don't have jumper). Restore the jumper and see if you can get to the BIOS.

[roma_turok]

WinXP activation cannot kill system.
disconnect all usb connections
Try power on with connected power cable and display, to see what happens

[Nelson37]

That error has nothing whatsoever to do with Windows or the OS in any way. Disconnect the hard drive and you will get the same thing.

The A1-A3 messages you need to reference in the mobo manual, but it won't be a good thing.

Most likely dead mobo as it booted at least once, are you certain the CPU heatsink was on properly? Could be cooked CPU.

Shorting the CMOS certainly won't hurt, it's worth a shot.

[ranchhand]

Your problem is not reactivation (as posters have said above). If you are not reaching the POST screen, it can only be one of three things.
>Failed monitor or bad cable (not the problem I think)
>Failed CPU
>Failed motherboard

When the CPU fails but the motherboard is good, all fans will spin up, motherboard power lamp will light, power supply will power on. Monitor will be dark, no keyboard or recognition beeps, hard drive may spin up but nothing on the monitor, no POST screen.
Anything else is a motherboard problem. If this is a new mobo, carefully go back over everything. The fact that Windows activated means everything was working until you rebooted. If you cannot reach POST, the signal from the BIOS is not reaching the monitor and probably the CPU.
Definitely clear the BIOS as Jagabo posted above; I have had several occasions when a corrupted setting on the BIOS prevented booting and POSTING on a new motherboard.
There is an outside chance that it is a power supply failure but not likely. The only way to dependably check that is with another power supply or a tester.

[aedipuss]

start with just the required components. disconnect everything from the motherboard except cpu ram video internal speaker keyboard and mouse. see if it can boot to bios. if yes add back one component at a time. if not one of the main components failed. check post error code, sometimes flashing light or beep code.

[bevills1]

CPU heatsink was and is on properly, but I did notice on first startup that heatsink fan wasn't turning due to heatsink fan power cable blocking it. Temp rose to 59 Celsius when I noticed this, and I powered down immediately to correct this after which CPU temp was steady around 30 Celsius. I then upgraded IE6 that's installed during WinXP install, did 135 Windows updates, downloaded and installed driver plus utility for PCI wireless adapter card and browsed the web, and everything appeared normal until immediately following activation. I don't think 59 Celsius would be enough to cook CPU because I've seen systems operate fine up to around 72 Celsius.

I too suspect dead mobo or CPU, but it's very strange the system would work normally and then fail when Windows is activated. Is there a way to determine whether CPU or mobo is dead if 1 of them is dead, and is it uncommon for such failure after just a few hours of operation? I got a bad mobo once before, but that one was doa and never posted at all.

[aedipuss]

about the only meaningful code you could get from post is a memory error. if cpu or mb is dead it won't post at all so no codes.

[Nelson37]

The A1-A3 msgs are either an error code or they signify the last successful operation. Check the manual as mentioned, this is the answer.

The mobo is commencing the POST process, it is just not completing it. The A1 display is coming from the board.

One other thing is to disconnect the KB and mouse, these can produce detectable input during power up and can sometimes give screwy results. Everything not essential should be disconnected from the mobo, including data cables. Shorted data cable can cause screwy things.

Not at all unusual for a board to fail on second power-up. Not common, but it happens.

One quick test is to pull ALL the RAM and check for beep code. Verify in manual that there Should be a beep code, and verify speaker connected or on-board. I often use this test as proof for RMA purposes.

[bevills1]

All hardware except video was disconnected resulting in post to bios. Hardware was reconnected 1 device at a time in order from keyboad, mouse, DVDRW drive, and first hard drive continuing to post to bios as well as boot to CD, but failure to post on connecting to second hard drive. Switching sata cables between hard drives resulted in same post results, i.e. connecting first drive continues to post and connecting second drive results in failure to post. Reconnecting all other hardware with first hard drive connected continues to post, but connecting second hard drive continues to fail to post. This seems to indicate a bad hard drive which is quite an odd coincidence with the Windows activation.

I've never had failure to post caused by bad hard drive before but would get mtldr is missing or some other error instead of failure to post. Perhaps this is the normal behavior for newer motherboards. Oh well, time to look for black Friday deal on a hard drive I suppose.

[jagabo]

I've never had failure to post caused by bad hard drive before

I've seen it happen.

[Nelson37]

Yes, absolutely. Error to load a file is a file error or surface defect.

A truly bad component, which has a dead short or serious error condition, can cause a failure to complete the post test. This is Exactly what the post test is for, in the first place.

Also why the standard advice in such cases is to disconnect absolutely everything not needed to get past whatever the error msg is.

What you had here is a common thing, two separate actions happening at the same time, which appear to be related, but most likely are not. Windows activation writes some data to the hard drive, but not in any unusual way. For this to cause a hardware failure would be extremely unusual.

Also, it is very, very likely that those A1-A3 messages would have told you this.

[bevills1]

The A1-A3 messages nor any other messages are not listed in mobo user manual which has no error message list or trouble shooting of any kind which is why I was unable to check that. The user manual has only instructions for assembly and how to set bios and install software. Now I dp notice several other messages flash by as PC starts up which I had simply overlooked before.