What could be wrong?

Hello everyone

A few years ago (2006) we bought a computer and it worked fine. But on a certain moment it just shutdown. When we putted on it booted normal, but at a certain moment it shutdown again (and so on at random times). Until it didn’t showed his bios anymore. At that time we just let it and bought a new computer. But now I want to let this one work again. We tried a lot: Changed GPU, Changed PSU ect.
But when this all didn’t work, we bought a pc diagnostic card. After we started it a few times up, it showed his bios but shuts down after a few seconds. And after that it won’t come in the bios anymore again. But we got codes from diagnostic card:
- When we were in the bios it stocked at 75 but that code wasn’t in the user manual
- Now stays by F0 which means: Next, searching for the AMIBOOT.ROM file in the root directory.
Al the fans are working.
I think that its on the power supply but im not sure because it worked before fine and in an other computer as well.
Any ideas are very welcome!!!

This are the specs:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA K8NF 9
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT Silent Pipe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ s939
PSU: LC power 550 watt Power Supply + 120 mm Fan v2.0 (LC6550)
RAM 4x: 1 GB DDR PC3200 (400 MHz)
If you need more information, ask me.

Thanks

Romce

(Sorry for my English)

Message edited by Romce on 07-10-2009 at 05:02:20 PM

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"AMI has an embedded recovery technique in the 'boot block' of the BIOS. In the event that the BIOS becomes corrupt the boot block can be used to restore the BIOS to a working state. The routine is called when the 'system block' of the BIOS is empty or corrupt. The restore routine when called will access the floppy drive (1.44Mb floppy disk drive) looking for a file named AMIBOOT.ROM.

This is the reason the floppy drive light comes on and the drive appears to be in use. If the file (AMIBOOT.ROM) is found it is loaded into the 'system block' of the BIOS to replace the corrupted information.

To restore your BIOS copy the most recent version of your motherboards BIOS file to a floppy diskette and rename it AMIBOOT.ROM. The diskette does not need to be bootable or contain a flash utility. It will access the floppy from 2-5 minutes the system will beep four times. Remove the floppy diskette from the drive and reboot the computer. if when you turn on the system it does not try to access the floppy, press and hold the 'CTRL' and 'HOME' keys at the same time. This will force the system (assuming the 'boot block' isn't corrupted) to access the flopy and look for the AMIBOOT.ROM file."

http://www.biosman.com/biosrecovery.html

Go to the link, see if you can/want to do this. It should be easy to do, so dont be intimadated

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

I suggest you use a new floppy, with nothing else on it

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

So what you actually mean is that he can't find his amiboot.rom and I have to put a new one in if I am correct?
But he should find it, because he did, as I already said, but if he is in the bios he shuts down and sometimes even before he is in the bios.

Reply to Romce

Probably power supply or bad capacitors, they dry up with age, or swell up and cause unstable operation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8095967@N05/2598373242/

the capacitors on top are clearly bad, good capacitors are flat on top, with no white material or anything other than dust on them. Also any brown stuff around the bottom of them means they are bad as well.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to royalcrown

jaydeejohn wrote :

"AMI has an embedded recovery technique in the 'boot block' of the BIOS. In the event that the BIOS becomes corrupt the boot block can be used to restore the BIOS to a working state. The routine is called when the 'system block' of the BIOS is empty or corrupt. The restore routine when called will access the floppy drive (1.44Mb floppy disk drive) looking for a file named AMIBOOT.ROM.

This is the reason the floppy drive light comes on and the drive appears to be in use. If the file (AMIBOOT.ROM) is found it is loaded into the 'system block' of the BIOS to replace the corrupted information.

To restore your BIOS copy the most recent version of your motherboards BIOS file to a floppy diskette and rename it AMIBOOT.ROM. The diskette does not need to be bootable or contain a flash utility. It will access the floppy from 2-5 minutes the system will beep four times. Remove the floppy diskette from the drive and reboot the computer. if when you turn on the system it does not try to access the floppy, press and hold the 'CTRL' and 'HOME' keys at the same time. This will force the system (assuming the 'boot block' isn't corrupted) to access the flopy and look for the AMIBOOT.ROM file."

http://www.biosman.com/biosrecovery.html

Go to the link, see if you can/want to do this. It should be easy to do, so dont be intimadated

Jaydeejohn, I wonder if it it like gigabyte, they store a copy of the bios in the "protected" area of the hard drive that the os can't see, my board had a few issues and said basically the same before a reflash fixed it. Gigabyte dully calls it the HPA for Hard Drive Protected Area

Reply to royalcrown

Could be, but my link suggests otherwise for AMI. So no renaming is required at least

------------------------------ I went drifting, thru the capitols of tin, where men cant walk and cant freely talk, and sons turn their fathers in
Reply to jaydeejohn

royalcrown wrote :

Probably power supply or bad capacitors, they dry up with age, or swell up and cause unstable operation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8095967@N05/2598373242/

the capacitors on top are clearly bad, good capacitors are flat on top, with no white material or anything other than dust on them. Also any brown stuff around the bottom of them means they are bad as well.

I looked on the internet and looked at a few pictures and looked my motherboard.
I saw that some were really flat, and some not flat but also not extremely bulging. I can't find any brown stuff or something like that.

I also thought of the power supply. But when i putted in an other computer it worked nice. Maybe I need a power supply with more watt for this computer.

Thanks for reacting so fast!

Reply to Romce

If that PSU works in another PC it is OK. You don't need a bigger one, you said it ran OK before the problem. Is your CPU cooling fan running? To test hardware, remove ALL plug in cards and memory. With only PSU, motherboard and CPU (with heatsink & fan) it should do continuous beeps for memory problem. If it doesn't, will be motherboard or CPU. Motherboard is more common failure than CPU. If it beeps, fit one memory module and you should get error for video problem. You could also use your tester at this point.

Mike.

Reply to mike99

Ok so removed everything as mike said. Accept the psu, cpu and motherboard. Cpu fan is working but I dont hear any beeps for the memory problem. So the cpu or motherboard should have a failure?
And could still bootup if it has a failure because it did yesterday but it shutdown after a few secs so I couldn't do very much in the bios

Thanks
Romce

Reply to Romce

When it started properly, did you hear a POST completed beep? If it starts again, go into the BIOS and monitor the CPU temp, if it overheats it WILL ( & should) shut down.You may have an intermittent motherboard fault.

Mike.

Reply to mike99

yes i heard a beep and it showed his bios but it was checking everything how much RAM ect. while that it shut down. But it's very hard to come in the bios now. But if let pc do nothing for month of something than it wil boot most of times. But again after some seconds it will shutdown, it takes only a bit longer.

Romce

Message edited by Romce on 07-12-2009 at 10:30:33 AM

Reply to Romce

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