PLEASE help me! I'm having boot problems.

[Guest]

OK, I have been searching message boards across the NET for the past 56 hours trying to find someone who can solve this problem for me. Good luck.

I have a self-built system. Critical specs are listed at the end of the post.

Quite frequently, whe I first power on the system, the BIOS does not load. The Front Panel lights for hard drive and power operate, the LED on the mobo lights up, and power is delivered to the HDD and CDROM, but there is no system beep or monitor display. (My monitor light remains orange) In this case, I must "cycle" the power, by turning the system on/off until it works. (I know this is not good for the system at all. That is why I am asking this now.) I've allready flashed the BIOS to the latest version in an attempt to fix the error.

The strangest part of the problem is that sometimes it works perfectly. No power on/off, or anyting else.

If someone out there can help me, please do.

CPU - AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.0GHz
MOBO - Giga-byte GA-7ZX Series with the VIA KT133 Chipset
VID - ATI Rage Pro 8MB
HDD - 30GB (approx) Seagate
OPSYS - Win98SE
BIOS - AMIBIOS

AMIBIOS Chipset Features Set to:********* DRAM Timing ***
Top Performance: Enabled
DRAM Frequency: 100MHz
SDRAM CAS# Latency: Auto

AGP Fast Write: Disabled
AGP Mode: 2x
AGP COMP Driving: Auto
Manual AGP COMP Driving: DB
AGP Aperture Size: 8MB
PCI Delay Transaction: Enabled
USB Controller: Enabled
USB Legacy Support: Disabled
USB Port 64/60 Emulation: Disabled
BIOS Flash Protection: Disabled
DRAM Drive Strength: Auto

 

[marty10g]

I am no expert but have you tried a different Vid Card

INTELigence is gained by obtaining aMD

 

[Guest]

I guess I could try that, but it seems to me that if the video card was bad, the system would never work, and I would get an error message beep from the system.

 

[jlanka]

gotta be some hardware component acting up. Start swapping stuff to see if you hit on the problem device.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

Yeah, but thats the point. I don't really have the money to go buy another CPU just to swap it and see if that fixes the problem. I wanted to know if anyone knew what piece of hardware could cause this problem so I wouldn't have to go hunting.

 

[madmanbmw]

I am guessing that it is one of your components also. But what kind of shape is your power supply in?

madison
mmcmajor@apex.net

 

[phsstpok]

Sounds like an inadequate power supply to me but that would only be one guess, maybe a 60% chance. If I'm right you have marginal power getting to your AGP port.

I'm just not sure. Your monitor's orange LED probably means it is not getting a signal. This could be something obvious. Clean up the pins on the VGA connector (carefully) and make sure it is fastened securely when you reconnect the cable.

I don't think this is related to your problem but I noticed you have AGP Aperture set to 8mb. With the the VIA KX and KT chipsets (maybe others), setting AGP Aperture below 32mb turns off AGP alltogether. When you do this your video card operates as if it were a PCI video card.

 

[jlanka]

Probably not your CPU (my guess). But if you don't have any components you can substitute, you can at least rip out all unnecessary stuff (sound card, modem, NIC, SCSI controller, even hard drives) and reseat your video card and RAM a few times to see if it will POST reliably at all. You can also take out extra sticks of RAM if you've got more than one, and even swap in and out different sticks. If it POSTS, then it's one of the things you removed (or it's low power). If it doesn't, then it's one of the things still in there, and you've probably eliminated power. See how you can do some decent troubleshooting without spending any money?

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

this appears to be a classic case of an underpowered power supply. when you first boot the pc the PSU is strained then more than at any other time during its operation. if it is marginal, it may manage to boot sometimes, while others not. its really like rolling two dice.....sometimes it'll work. sometimes not. 'cycling' your power on and off isnt really helping. while im not certain this is your problem (even though i sound like it), my first move would be to buy a nice 400 watt enlight or 431 enermax PSU.

It could be a loose component, but ususally when something like ram isnt seated correctly it wont boot until reseated. this random boot action screams 'power supply' to me.....but it could be the huge coffee i just finished is making my ears ring!

Good luck, amigo!!!

ignore everything i say

 

[pulse]

I just had that same problem with different components.
my advice:


take out all extra pci cards.
connect only vid card, floppy(or cdrom whichever you'll boot off of) and hdd.
recheck ram and all cable conections.... (i.e. do you have them seated properly)
I noticed you have your bios set to optimal (which should be fine) but try setting it to a safe default.
also raise the agp apperture to 32.

if it doesn't work then, then try swapping out cables.
if that STILL doesn't work, try swapping out your ram.

if that doesn't work then it comes down to three possible problems.... your mobo, your vid card, or your cpu.

take it one step at a time and think logically and you can kick thiss problem's A#S!