HP Pavilion 533W

My lawn man brought over a HP Pavilion 533W desktop computer to see if I
could get it to work for him. I think one of his other customers gave it to
him. The computer would not start. It appears that the system partition had
been either formatted or corrupted. I could still see the HP restore
partition during the Windows XP setup. I tried to load windows XP from a
boot cd and was unsuccessful, installation would not complete. Then I wanted
to load XP using boot floppies only to find out that the floppy disk in the
computer wasn't working. I could not get a floppy into it. I had extra
floppy drives so I installed one. Now when I start the computer I get a
normal HP start screen and it will even go to a Windows XP startup up
screen (when using the XP CD) but then slowly the screen turns a kind of
orange (like it is burning) from the center and spreads until the whole
screen is burnt orange then it turns dark. I am using a flat screen LCD
monitor. I thought maybe I fried the video card (built into the
motherboard) or my LCD monitor so I tried an extra video card and it started
up showed the Windows XP screen then the same thing happened again.So I know
my LCD monitor is good. I guess I could have possibly shorted the
motherboard when I swapped out the floppy drive but I don't know. I don't
even know the specs of the machine so I am not sure if it is worth
scavenging. I went ahead and bought my lawn man another HP desktop off eBay
and was wondering if I should just junk this 533W and keep what parts I can
salvage or if there is a way I can fix it. Is there a way to get the
original HP system to load from the HP restore partition? I have swapped out
motherboards before so if that is an option I will do it. Just wondered if
it is worth the trouble. Thanks in advance.

--
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Education is good, but a wise man uses common sense.
Sandford D. Clark

Additionally, I just tried the computer again. I guess I did get XP to load
but now the computer starts and the screen is very low resolution. I must
need to load video drivers but before I can do that the screen goes dark.



"William Michael Greene" <> wrote in message
news:Tctqh.6998$...
> My lawn man brought over a HP Pavilion 533W desktop computer to see if I
> could get it to work for him. I think one of his other customers gave it
> to
> him. The computer would not start. It appears that the system partition
> had
> been either formatted or corrupted. I could still see the HP restore
> partition during the Windows XP setup. I tried to load windows XP from a
> boot cd and was unsuccessful, installation would not complete. Then I
> wanted
> to load XP using boot floppies only to find out that the floppy disk in
> the
> computer wasn't working. I could not get a floppy into it. I had extra
> floppy drives so I installed one. Now when I start the computer I get a
> normal HP start screen and it will even go to a Windows XP startup up
> screen (when using the XP CD) but then slowly the screen turns a kind of
> orange (like it is burning) from the center and spreads until the whole
> screen is burnt orange then it turns dark. I am using a flat screen LCD
> monitor. I thought maybe I fried the video card (built into the
> motherboard) or my LCD monitor so I tried an extra video card and it
> started
> up showed the Windows XP screen then the same thing happened again.So I
> know
> my LCD monitor is good. I guess I could have possibly shorted the
> motherboard when I swapped out the floppy drive but I don't know. I don't
> even know the specs of the machine so I am not sure if it is worth
> scavenging. I went ahead and bought my lawn man another HP desktop off
> eBay
> and was wondering if I should just junk this 533W and keep what parts I
> can
> salvage or if there is a way I can fix it. Is there a way to get the
> original HP system to load from the HP restore partition? I have swapped
> out
> motherboards before so if that is an option I will do it. Just wondered if
> it is worth the trouble. Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
> Martin Luther King Jr.
>
> Education is good, but a wise man uses common sense.
> Sandford D. Clark
>
>
>

I am having the same prob after reformatting my 533w. Once you get it working again its a great computer just not that fast. There are better out there and when I have more money to buy a new one I will but for now this is pretty good as long as you dont expect alot of memory.

I know the prob in mine is the video driver HOWEVER I do not know which NVIDIA product my husband had put in there for me and so i do not know what driver to download. When it restored back to the out of the store settings it put back the original video card info and not the new video card and so I am at a loss as to what to do.

If you know how to find out which video card I have I would really appreciate it.