Computer will not boot

[kerinba]

hi, ive had my pc for about a year maybe less, its an Acer Launch Aspire X1200 Compact, with all the standard hard ware, it has windows 7.

well, the first problem i saw started about 2-3 weeks ago, when i went to watch a video online, my display driver would crash for a few seconds the screen would go bland and then it would recover, this would happen a fair bit as time went on, in the end most videos would crash, then i was watching a video and it crashed, and had to turn the computer off at the power, now every time i turn my computer on i get the message, "Reboot and select proper boot device" ive read through over posts and they all say to check boot order. ive done so, no hard drive is listed when i go to pick which hd, also, after i get the boot error if i wait 1 hour i can get on the computer, it will load up fine as if nothing was wrong, but then after about 1 minute of use it will crash and then continue to give the boot error message.

so do i need a new hard drive or graphics card or does it just need system recover?? please help!

 

[Mark56]

Download this CoreTemp and report back with the temperature read out. It sounds as if it may be overheating.

You can run this software to test the graphics card

Download Furmark from here

FurMark Setup:
• If you have more than one GPU, select Multi-GPU during setup
• In the Run mode box, select "Stability Test" and "Log GPU Temperature"
• Click "Go" to start the test
• Run the test until the GPU temperature maxes out - or until you start having problems (whichever comes first).
NOTE: Set the alarm to go off at 90ºC. Then watch the system from that point on. If the system doesn't display a temperature, watch it constantly and turn it off at the first sign of video problems. DO NOT leave it unmonitored, it can DAMAGE your video card!!!
• Click "Quit" to exit

This guide tells you a bit more.

And follow this guide to test the hard drive.

Identify the make of your hard drive and then use one of the links below to get the manufacturer's diagnostics for ISO (CD) not the one for Windows.

When the download is complete right click the file and select Extract Here and burn the image to a CD.

In Windows 7 right click the extracted file, select Open With, then select Windows Disc Image Burning Tool then follow the prompts. For all other versions of windows (if you do not have an ISO burner) download this free software. isoimageburner

Boot the PC into the Bios setup and set the CD/DVD drive to 1st in the boot sequence. Insert the disk in the drive then reboot and the disc will load into dos.

Excelstore
Hitachi/IBM
Samsung
Seagate, Maxtor & Quantum
Western Digital

Toshiba/Fujitsu
If you have a Toshiba/Fujitsu hard drive I would suggest the use of the diagnostics from the Seagate link as this will work on all makes of drive and on any OS.