this really isnt a windows xp problem more of a general pc prob my pc shut down on me the other day when i was doing my school work and it restarted but then shut down right away and now when i turn it on it makes the noise like its starting up but nothing comes on my monitor and i got it to go to the main menu once and it restarted right away so i tried to reboot in safe mode and it fooze now i havent been able to get it to do anything besides make the starting up noises but nothing on the monitor ive tried using a xp boot disk and a floppy d.o.s boot disk but still nothing last time i got to my desktop all my stuff was still there and the power supply and fan seem to be working fine so any suggestions on what to try pleeeease!!!?

Sounds like a major hardware failure.

Are you familiar with opening the computer case?

Are you familiar with working inside computers?

Does the monitor show a No Signal Input notice?

Does the monitor LED go onto Green or is it always Amber or is it OFF?

Do you hear any BEEPS?

Also if you could use proper punctuation and capitalization it would help us read and help. Thanks.

Sorry about that,I opened the case but i'm not to good with working inside them.The monitor light stays green untill the monitor self test thing on the screen gets to the bottom of the screen and than it goes yellow,when it first shut down and restarted I heard beeps but not since then.

Just to clarify: When you start the computer you do see the BIOS POST? (Power On Self Test)?

Can you enter the BIOS Setup?

Do you know if you have a Graphics Card or is the graphics running on the motherboard?

What is the make and model of the computer?

I got to the bios setup one time and changed the date and time cause an error i got when it got to desktop said they were wrong ,but i havent been able to get to the self test and memory test part since this morning,every once inawhile when i turn it on it goes to the memory test and then the xp login screen but most of the day today it just makes the startup sound then sits there.Asfar as the model and stuff i'm not to sure I just use it for school work thats why im freaking out about it I know it has a graphic card but not a good one it's an older pc 40gb hd 900mhz xp sp1.

In a worse case scenario you can slave the hard drive in another computer in order to extract your data files.

If it is an older PC it probably has an on-board VGA (graphics) port. Look at the back and see if there is another port that will take your monitor plug. If so try this.

If not or if this doesn't help I would suggest removing the graphics card (assuming that you have an on-board port).

Another step would be to first remove all your RAM and reboot. This should set off a lot of BEEPING.

Then shut it down and reseat on RAM module and try again. If no good try the module in a different slot or try another module.

If you are not aware of ESD please read this before working inside the computer:

http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/72.html