compaq presario 3 beebs and then half screen

[alpaky66]

I have a compaq presario 1693 laptop that worked fine until yesterday when i installed a wireless network card and it called for reboot then the compaq screen did not appear as usual. Instead I get three beebs then the screen is scrunched up into a half screen you can still see the words, but there are like I said scrunched up. When windows was still on the system it would try to load it but would give me a could not find file must reload windows. I could not read the name of this file because of the scrunchiness of it but when I pushed the power button a few more times it started working agian wow so I finished loadind the software thinking it was a glitch in the system well it of coarse ask me to reboot agian and thats the last time I saw it running good this is not a crappy system or it used to not be please somebody help me figure it out

[RedFury]

When you start up the laptop, do you get anything on the screen at all?

If you don't, I would try restarting it, but hold the "insert" key while starting to reset the CMOS and see if you can at least get a signal to the screen.

Which version of windows? I'm going to assume XP. If possible, try running the recovery console by pressing f8 ( I believe ) while the system starts.

[alpaky66]

no that didn't work and it is 98 when i start it i get a series of three beeps one long two short. and you can get to the bois and you can half way load an os if you can read the jumbled words i've loaded windows many times so i no what it says already there is an error code 0280: previous boot incomplete-default configuration used and this part of the screen is completly readable there is a red highlighted box in the center of the screen that says:save to disk feature is disabled run phdisk for info. FILE:create new. PARTITION: consult manual. Hit any key to exit then at the bottom of the screen it gives you two options f1 to boot or f10 computer setup. and like i said this screen and the bios are completly readable.......the bios is a phoenixbios 4.0 release 6.0....bios version 0F0B. .......And no when you start it there is no splash screen at all nor is there a dos load

[Brainchild]

Have you tried pulling the NIC out and see if it will boot.Sounds like the NIC may be conflicting with the video.

[alpaky66]

well here's the deal I've been reading up on it and it seams that the computer had (had) a save to disk partition on it ........well when i put the nic card in it the bios had not been upgraded to handle such a jolt or the vid card could'nt handle it one.................well in my quest to prove that hindsite is indead 20/20 I read (too late) that after five reboots if you have a corrupt os in your save to disk file it will boot to the last good config.(refer to my first message about the comes back on sometimes)... But alas I'm a Dumb##. I fdisked it and deleted all partitions so I could start over............Well it obviously is one of those old computers that store the cmos settings on the harddrive.(more of my reading adventures) So now I'm screwed. Someone told me to flash the bios but I don't know how to do that. I really need a compaq professional.

[RedFury]

Flashing the bios isn't all that hard, as long as you read the online directions it should go just fine. Just make sure to write down the DOS string that they most likely will want you to type along with the updated BIOS file name. I've flashed a few BIOS' in my day and as long as you don't have a power failure during the flashing process or hardware that will screw with the system, it's not all that scary regardless of the horror stories you may have read online.

[alpaky66]

how or where do I find detailed instructions do flash the bios ..I don't have a clue

[alpaky66]

compaq presario 1693 w/ phoenixbios 4.0

[thePh@r@oh]

try doing a google for info on it its not too bad just make sure you got some reliable floppy disks