[Peter.Cort]

This might fall under a hardware issue, but it might be an bios issue.

So here's the background of the situation. My computer is really old and on the brink of death. My parents are extremely reluctant to get me a new one so I'm trying to oc stuff and all that jazz. So I'm trying to get in the bios, but it's an old HP and the commands to get into the phoenix bios don't work. So I try and get a bios upgrade, which doesn't work because some people are incompetent. But in the process I'm in the boot menu and I change a setting that will let me see the list of whats going on when the comptuer starts up cause I like knowing what happens. So I go and start up the computer, and I get the How do you wanna go about starting windows, last known good config, safe mode etc... So I do start it normally because I figure that since I shut down the computer abruptly the old HP prolly forgot that it's ok to do that, and thought something happened. But I get the same screen again and I hit last known good config, then safe mode, and everything. The system restore is all crappy and messed up so I can't do that, and I had all my window's files on a flash drive that conviently got smashed at school one day... good game. So can I fix my computer? Or is it toast?


And if it is fixable, part of me wants to know, how can I trash it inconspicously so that it looks like just normal wear and tear and it just finally crapped out. And my parents know that I do a lot of gaming, and I do a lot of stuff with it, so if I can pass it off as like the CPU got over heated while I was gaming for extended periods of time that would be perfect.

Thanks for help, if you would like to contact me directly pm me with your preferred messenger of choice and we can talk. I have aim, gmail talk, msn and xfire, no yahoo.

[poorman]

Your post made me laugh. I remember a time when I was in the same position. Of course computer prices were not as low back then.
I don't know exactly what you did but you screwed up your copy of windows. You can re install Windows and have a fresh slate, of course losing any settings and files.
But I see you just want your parents to get you a new system. Well there are two ways to do it, depending on how computer savvy your parents are.
You could just unplug the IDE cable to the hard drive (ribbon cable), keep the power plug to the hard drive still plugged in so the computer sounds the same. That would throw a nice Please insert system disk or Non system disk error.
Thats as far as I am going to help you, its not hard to destroy vital components on a motherboard. I'll give you a hint: Circuit Traces.

[pintobeef]

whats the specs of your PC, out of interest?

some ideas of how to destroy your pc
Step By Step 3 - How to destroy your computer!

[superdave1984]

You could probably do a repair install of Windows and be fine. Or boot to the recovery console and try chkdsk /r, fixboot, and fixmbr.

[Peter.Cort]

well... i did kill it. i left it on and monitered the temp thru the bios... and it got over 100 C with the fan on so it just fried. my old pc was an old HP a700n and the chip was from 99...

[iamchel]

wait how did you fry it exactly? You had an athlon xp didn't you? Shame on you if it was

You could have just plugged the usb cable into firewire port..makes a little smoke, and smell but then everything else "should" still work. Then you could have thrown out the motherboard and sold the rest of the parts for a few dollars.