Mouse Tails

It seems no matter how bizarre a problem is, there’s always another right around the corner that can top it. Ever since I began offering Delaware computer support to local businesses, I have found that one day is seldom like another… and to me, that’s a good thing.

Yesterday I got a call from one of my clients. They are located quite a long distance away… in fact they are the most distant of all my clients and had we not already been servicing them before they moved their operation, I wouldn’t consider retaining them.  Yeah, it’s that far… about 95 miles… one way!

The way the problem was explained over the phone, I thought Windows was failing to load due to corrupt boot files.  The lady who called said “When I boot the machine, the white line fills up about three quarters of the way and then stops.  I have rebooted several times and it always stops at the same spot.”   Since they have a couple of old 2000 Pro workstations, I believed a booting issue was the problem.

When I got on-site (2 hours in traffic later), I found a completely different scenario.

The unit was a Dell desktop running XP Pro, but the OS definitely wasn’t the problem. The unit wasn’t even getting completely through the POST operation.  When the Dell is running its POST there is a white progress line displayed on the monitor.  If I hit the f2 key, it would tell me it was loading setup, but again the white line display would stop around the three-quarters mark, just as she said it did.

First, I thought I would try reseating the memory.  I unplugged everything, opened up the Dell clam-shell case (I hate those), and reseated both sticks of memory.  While the case was still open I reattached the VGA cable and the power cable and hit the on button.  Lo and behold, the unit booted into Windows.  Ah Ha… Problem solved… I thought.

I put everything back together, fired up the unit and… same symptoms…same three-quarter white line. Since I had just seen the unit boot normally, I knew it had to be caused by something that had changed since the case was closed back up. Before I closed it up I had checked for pinched cables and such, so I decided to try unplugging things and see what happened.

First I unplugged the USB printer and rebooted… Nope… Still no bootage… then I unplugged the keyboard and rebooted… No, not even a complaint about a missing keyboard… I unplugged the mouse and rebooted… Ta Dah !   It booted into Windows without a complaint.

Now, with a legitimate suspect I started looking more closely.  I discovered the mouse wire had been gnawed almost in two by some really tiny teeth.  About this time those teeth came prancing in, surrounded by the cutest little teacup Yorkshire terrier you would ever want to see.  It seems the owner had just acquired this little sweetheart, but didn’t yet know she was chewing on things.

Bottom line I guess, if the unit won’t boot, along with the OS don’t forget to look at all of the peripheral connections as possible culprits.

Good Luck and Good Computing.

From way down in the trenches… Tom

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This entry was posted on 26. May 2008 at 10:34 and is filed under peripherals, Troubleshooting, Networking, Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.