stops halfway through boot

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Hello. I've got a computer with a asus P2B motherboard.
It has worked alright up till now and whenever it has booted into WindowsXP
it has been very stable.
However lately it has refused to move past the following stage on boot up:-

Award Modular Bios etc etc...
Asus P2B ACPI Bios Revision 1014
Pentium 3 500Mhz
Memory test

Award Plug Play Bios Extension v1.0A
Initialize Plug and Play Cards
PNP Init Completed

Trend Chip Anti Virus R Onboard

Found CDROM -Toshiba
Found CDROM - etc etc

All of this is successful and normal. At the very start there is the single
beep saying everything is ok.
Then at the stage where it finds the CDROM drives it stops.
If I then tap the computer the power to the monitor stops, the screen goes
blank and there are either 3 or 4 short high pitched beeps of equal length.
This then keeps happening when I tap the computer. The power to the monitor
comes on very briefly, then blanks out and I get the 3 or 4 short beeps.

I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed that
to see what would happen.
But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at all
and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed by 3
short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms are very
different from what I'm experiencing.

If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
I have tried changing the boot drive sequence to A:C then C:A etc but with
the same results.
But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
finding the cdroms drives)
Can anyone help please?
Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

MikeJohnes wrote:

> Hello. I've got a computer with a asus P2B motherboard.
> It has worked alright up till now and whenever it has booted into WindowsXP
> it has been very stable.
> However lately it has refused to move past the following stage on boot up:-
>
> Award Modular Bios etc etc...
> Asus P2B ACPI Bios Revision 1014
> Pentium 3 500Mhz
> Memory test
>
> Award Plug Play Bios Extension v1.0A
> Initialize Plug and Play Cards
> PNP Init Completed
>
> Trend Chip Anti Virus R Onboard
>
> Found CDROM -Toshiba
> Found CDROM - etc etc
>
> All of this is successful and normal. At the very start there is the single
> beep saying everything is ok.
> Then at the stage where it finds the CDROM drives it stops.
> If I then tap the computer the power to the monitor stops, the screen goes
> blank and there are either 3 or 4 short high pitched beeps of equal length.
> This then keeps happening when I tap the computer. The power to the monitor
> comes on very briefly, then blanks out and I get the 3 or 4 short beeps.

Tapping the computer isn't the best idea but that indicates something is loose.


> I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed that
> to see what would happen.
> But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at all
> and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed by 3
> short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms are very
> different from what I'm experiencing.

That doesn't eliminate anything as the computer simply won't startup with
no display device and that's what it's telling you with the beeps: no
display device.


> If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
> I have tried changing the boot drive sequence to A:C then C:A etc but with
> the same results.
> But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
> finding the cdroms drives)

While not detecting the hard drives would be an obvious problem them being
detected doesn't mean they're operating perfectly. A drive can fail and
still be detected.

At any rate, you probably need to break it down to bare bones and see if it
boots that way. Then add things back in one-by-one to see what causes the hang.

> Can anyone help please?
> Thanks.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"David Maynard" <nospam@private.net> wrote in message
news:113jbojknin42b5@corp.supernews.com...

> Tapping the computer isn't the best idea but that indicates something is
> loose.
>
>
>> I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed
>> that to see what would happen.
>> But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at
>> all and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed
>> by 3 short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms
>> are very different from what I'm experiencing.
>
> That doesn't eliminate anything as the computer simply won't startup with
> no display device and that's what it's telling you with the beeps: no
> display device.
>
>
>> If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
>> I have tried changing the boot drive sequence to A:C then C:A etc but
>> with the same results.
>> But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
>> finding the cdroms drives)
>
> While not detecting the hard drives would be an obvious problem them being
> detected doesn't mean they're operating perfectly. A drive can fail and
> still be detected.
>
> At any rate, you probably need to break it down to bare bones and see if
> it boots that way. Then add things back in one-by-one to see what causes
> the hang.
>
>> Can anyone help please?
>> Thanks.
mmmmm
This is strange. Sometimes it boots up normally and when it is up and
running it is very stable. In other words it's not crashed.

I think something must be short circuiting part of the motherboard. I've
noticed that sometimes it turns itself on meaning that the power switch on
the motherboard must be shorting sometimes.
I unscrewed the part of the MB where the leads to the LEDs and power/reset
buttons on the computer front join the board and moved the board about a bit
and it seems to have worked. For now at least.
I've had a long look through the Google archived newsgroups and at least 3
other people have mentioned a very similar problem with ASUS motherboards.
i.e. they boot alright up until the point where the hard drive is being read
and the operating system is about to load, then it hangs at that stage and
starts making 3 short high pitched beeps as they screen goes blank.
But unfortunately these threads don't resolve the problem.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

MikeJohnes wrote:

> "David Maynard" <nospam@private.net> wrote in message
> news:113jbojknin42b5@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
>>Tapping the computer isn't the best idea but that indicates something is
>>loose.
>>
>>
>>
>>>I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed
>>>that to see what would happen.
>>>But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at
>>>all and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed
>>>by 3 short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms
>>>are very different from what I'm experiencing.
>>
>>That doesn't eliminate anything as the computer simply won't startup with
>>no display device and that's what it's telling you with the beeps: no
>>display device.
>>
>>
>>
>>>If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
>>>I have tried changing the boot drive sequence to A:C then C:A etc but
>>>with the same results.
>>>But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
>>>finding the cdroms drives)
>>
>>While not detecting the hard drives would be an obvious problem them being
>>detected doesn't mean they're operating perfectly. A drive can fail and
>>still be detected.
>>
>>At any rate, you probably need to break it down to bare bones and see if
>>it boots that way. Then add things back in one-by-one to see what causes
>>the hang.
>>
>>
>>>Can anyone help please?
>>>Thanks.
>
> mmmmm
> This is strange. Sometimes it boots up normally and when it is up and
> running it is very stable. In other words it's not crashed.
>
> I think something must be short circuiting part of the motherboard. I've
> noticed that sometimes it turns itself on meaning that the power switch on
> the motherboard must be shorting sometimes.

Well, that's possible but it's also possible there's a BIOS setting to
power back on after a power failure and perhaps it's sensing AC line noise,
or you are getting AC disruptions, as a power failure.

> I unscrewed the part of the MB where the leads to the LEDs and power/reset
> buttons on the computer front join the board and moved the board about a bit
> and it seems to have worked. For now at least.
> I've had a long look through the Google archived newsgroups and at least 3
> other people have mentioned a very similar problem with ASUS motherboards.
> i.e. they boot alright up until the point where the hard drive is being read
> and the operating system is about to load, then it hangs at that stage and
> starts making 3 short high pitched beeps as they screen goes blank.
> But unfortunately these threads don't resolve the problem.

Is it an AMI BIOS? 3 beep codes is DRAM detect failure.

>
>