DOH! can powersurge cause BOOT FAIL?!

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dzjunction

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hi all...

so here's the situation. (p4 2.4GHz, ASUS P4PE MOBO)

the outlet my computer is connected to was shut suddenly shut down and on again while my computer was on. i am connected to a power surge.

upon restart, the bios hardware monitor gives an error msg
"Hardware Monitor found an error. Enter Power setup menu for details"

so i go into Hardware Monitor and notice that 2 things are in red:

CPU fan speed = is 0
Chassis Fan Speed = 958 RPM

now, my fan is clearly going so thats not right.

at this point i suspect the Power supply, but all voltages in the Voltage monitors read correctly:
3.34V, 5.02V, 11.96/12.03 V. moreover, i hear and see that my cd rom are working.

so, i go ahead and tell bios to IGNORE the 2 FAN speed errors and only then my bios continues on.

instead of a windows OS startup screen, i get "PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT"

when trying to boot from cd-rom i get,
"NO EMULATION, COULDN'T FIND NTLDR"

so im not sure what the problem is, is the very initial problem that my bios though my fan speed = 0?

if so why? is it powersupply? motherboard?

i thought a power surge protector was suppose to prevent this.

if anyone has any idea, PLEASE let me know,

thanks
 
so after more research, here are some new conclusion and questions that may help.

essentially, there are 2 issues...

1. why is my BIOS telling me that the CPU and CHASSIS FAN SPEED are incorrect?

---> we can rule out the power supply since voltage readings are what they should be. i'm thinking this implies that something is wrong with my motherboard.

2. the OS is unable to boot from CD or Harddrive.

---> now i'm thinking that #2 is really a continuation of #1. if there is something wrong with my MOBO, then i assume i'm not going to be able to boot normally. this would also seemingly explain why i couldn't boot from cd rom. can i rule out an issue with my harddrive for the time being since broken harddrive or not, i should still be able to boot from my cd-rom (I REALLY HOPE NOTHING IS WRONG WITH MY HD)

so here are some ideas i had for possible tests / solutions... ( i could def use some advice here)

i was going to remove the Clear RTC RAM jumper on the motherboard. its the little jumper by the lithion battery that "clears the CMOS memory of date, time, and system setup parameters" and reset to default system settings.

one thing to note is that last night, i just randomly removed that battery, i forgot i removed it, and continued to turn the system off and on as normal. i didn't notice a single change in what was already happening.... that battery is suppose to power the RAM in CMOS and removing it altogether caused no change in the errors i was experiencing. im not sure what that implies.


could it be my CPU? is there a way i can test for that?

other than that, if anyone has any suggestions on how to rule out certain components or locate the issue more, please let me know. i'm running out of ideas here.


:(
 
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