Intel DG41MJ will not boot, error E51 on startup

[Safetybob]

Yesterday, I came home and my computer had froze around 10AM in the morning, thought perhaps we had power event that might have stalled my cameras from diplaying real time. Restarted computer and all I get is code E51 on bottom right corner of display.

I tested my Pico-PSU from Mini-box and my tester reported that my +12V2 was too low or not present "LL" blinking for you that have the FrozenCPU LED power supply tester. OK, hooked up a "real" power supply and still no boot, nothing past the initial boot screen and E51. Have one single beep as it boots which as I recall it normally does, then it boots.

I figure when the power supply went, it took the motherboard too. Any ideas? Yes I have an exact setup in another area of the house so I am just about ready to start swapping hard drives, ect to tract the problem down, but at this point I have already swapped hard drives with no change, so I figure it is toast. No smell though.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Bob

 

[the great randini]

does it say "PXE-E51: No DHCP or proxyDHCP offers were received"

if so boot to bios and set boot order to
1. hard drive
2. cd
and you can disable the rest or set the order to your fancy. it sounds like you pc is trying to "network boot" (pxe boot).

 

[Safetybob]

Nope. No PXE-E51, just a small E51 with the intel logo on the display. It has not even posted, so I can't get to anything to change boot order.

After further testing of the Pico PSU, it is working correctly (one simply has to read the manual to find out you need to test the P4 connector (4 pin)). Looked at motherboard and do not see much anything wrong, but I did not examine further, that will be later today.

Bob

 

[Safetybob]

Switched motherboard and left all other components the same. Was able to get to Win7 startup error window and no matter how far back I "restored" to, the computer still would not start windows. Did notice that in the windows repair log, it said there was a "patch" that was not allowing windows to start. All other areas of the computer checked out. The last restore attempt finally brought out there was hard drive problem, no details offered.

Installed windows on new hard drive and all works correctly now. Was able to get my files off the old hard drive with no problems using a usb drive adapter.

For the record, the computer only beeped once, and never left the Intel splash screen, and the number displayed was 51, not e51. Again, never posted, never started at all. Interesting time indeed.

Bob