ANY hope at all?

[ssmartin86]

I've been working on my sister's hp 531w, running Windows XP.  Since installing SP2, she gets a screen that says windows had shutdown unexpectedly previously and how would she like to start it?  Gives "safe Mode", "reboot", several options - but when any of them are highlighted and entered you basically end up getting a blank screen.

I've tried to reboot it with CD-Rom, Floppy, USB Flash Drive but NOTHING works -- still same blank screen.  I've used F5 and F9 (or 10) and been able to get in and check things out, but no changes help at all.  I did see, however that it says "system fan - no function"..... does that mean it's not working at all? I sort of think I hear it, but it doesn't seem that loud to me.  I do feel a 'little' air from it, but the other fan (Cooling fan) is working fine.

Can someone tell me -- is there ANY way to get into the computer, reformat it, etc?  It doesn't seem possible to me if I can't get the floppy, CD-Rom or anything else to pull up the information on those to reboot, restart, recover or anything, but is there another function I could use to get to a prompt even?

[contrex]

Can we be clear what we mean by "System fan" and "cooling fan"? (All fans are cooling fans). If the CPU fan is stopped, it may be that the cpu is getting too hot and the system is shutting down to avoid damage. These models are known to have a weakness in the power supply. Is there a fan in there?

Why don't you open the case and take a look?

[Sid]

I've been working on my sister's hp 531w, running Windows XP.  Since installing SP2, she gets a screen that says windows had shutdown unexpectedly previously and how would she like to start it?  Gives "safe Mode", "reboot", several options - but when any of them are highlighted and entered you basically end up getting a blank screen.

I've tried to reboot it with CD-Rom, Floppy, USB Flash Drive but NOTHING works -- still same blank screen.  I've used F5 and F9 (or 10) and been able to get in and check things out, but no changes help at all.  I did see, however that it says "system fan - no function"..... does that mean it's not working at all? I sort of think I hear it, but it doesn't seem that loud to me.  I do feel a 'little' air from it, but the other fan (Cooling fan) is working fine.

Can someone tell me -- is there ANY way to get into the computer, reformat it, etc?  It doesn't seem possible to me if I can't get the floppy, CD-Rom or anything else to pull up the information on those to reboot, restart, recover or anything, but is there another function I could use to get to a prompt even?

Is the BIOS set to boot from floppy/cd, and if so, is it BEFORE your harddrive?

If not, that might just be why you can't get it to boot to something else.

To get into BIOS, hit the button to get into setup whatever it may be.