Laptop and Desktop fooped!! Help!

[Mauler]

Ahh, you've not tried the 2nd output on the laptop yet? Righto.

With regards to a USB keyboard, try to get your hands on as simple a keyboard as possible. With one of my PCs at home it never wwants to take inputs from my Razer keyboard until it's booted into Windows but with a standard Dell keyboard borrowed from work it's absolutely fine.

[Mark_h]

Have you got a PS2 keyboard (old school round pin plug rather than USB) It may at least let you get to a windows disc repair if you can press F8 which you may be unable to do if it's not getting as far as loading the USB drivers.

Or try forcing the dog into the DVD drive slot. It probably won't help fix it but will make you feel a lot better give it's all the dog's fault anyway!

I think your computers are disgusted with all the filth you look at. May i suggest "SafeSearch - ON" in the future.

[Fallout]

I found a brand new PS2 keyboard in the attic (brand new from like 2007!) and that has got the desktop booting. I suspect it overheated or something. Then I switched it on too soon. It overheated mid boot, and shut off again. Then because of that failed boot, it brought up the error screen, but I've not been able to F1 Continue past it with my USB kb. After a reboot it's all fine now. Sweet!

Laptop still fecked.

@Clive - I've slowly build up my PCs immunity to horrible degrading porn over the years. Now it's totally desensitized!

Replace the CMOS battery on the desktops motherboard.

Originally Posted by Fallout

Ball bags! Yes, the mobo does sound like the culprit for the desktop. The compo is fairly old, so perhaps overheated and cooked something on it. It was built with top components back in the day, but it's had a lot of use.

I'll try and find another keyboard for the desktop and see if that helps. I am using a wireless one, which obviously makes it difficult to confirm whether there's an issue with the keyboard or not (I have changed batteries and reconnected). I'll see if I can source a normal USB one.

As for the lappy, it still works perfectly fine. I probably need to have another bash at getting inside it to see if anything is loose after it's rhino charge. I'll try the secondary monitor trick first though.

Thanks for the thoughts gents!

The drivers for the wireless keyboard probably wont load until windows is loading so you need to use a wired keyboard to get into the BIOS etc.

Ignore my second post but still replace the CMOS battery (or at least check the voltage) as this may have been a contributing factor to the failed boot.

[Mauler]

Good news on the desktop!

[Fallout]

Desktop is fine again Phil, but the MB battery for the laptop might be a shout. The whole on/off 1 million times before it boots up hints at some sort of power issue, so perhaps the MB battery is the issue.