Pc wont boot! help!

[Guest]

a very weird thing happened to my friend. He moved his PC, and after that, it wont boot. It doesn't give anything on the display (the display light keeps blinking orange), doesn' boot up, all the lights blink on keyboard, cd-drives and HD. also, all the fans start to function, and the display adapter heats a bit.

The power supply has been changed, the display adapter has been changed, monitor has been changed, and the bios-battery has been removed and reinstalled. Also, all the pci cards (and isa) has been removed. And moreover, the processor has been unplugged and replugged, as is the bios-chip. yet more, the memory has been unplugged and replugged.

The configuration:
MSI 6717 MB
athlon 500 (slot-a)
230w power and 250w power
128 mb kingmax pc133 sdram
19" hitachi and 15" other monitor
MS (un)natural keyboard and logitech pilot mouse
TNT2 ultra (viper 770)
IBM deskstar 20gb
dvd rom drive

What do you people think? could it be the motherboard? (all the other devices function, and get power). Or the BIOS? (it has been "cleared" by removing the battery and even the bios-chip itself).

I would appreciate all tips!

Raoul

 

[girish]

well thats really strange! the only thing to try swapping is the motherboard i guess, and that could well be damaged.
try these things first:
remove the memory and power up, if the board is well it should screem out for memory (looooooong beeps)
remove the video card and power up, again it should give out one long and two short beeps, then the board is okay. try putting the display card in other slot.

or better still remove all the cards and hard disk and put one by one to see whether it boots. it could well be some other card that is preventing the system from booting.

keep posted.

girish

 

[ledzepp98]

you said you tried it already, but give the cpu another shot. the same thing happened to me where just the fans and the light go on, but nothing else. even though i re-seated the cpu (it was also a slot-a athlon), i didn't snap it down well enough. they can be tricky to seat right. it's like ram where it feels like it went down all the way but it might not have clicked in

 

[Guest]

we tried to boot without any memory, but the beeper (should be installed right!) doesn't make a sound. The beeper hasn't made a sound the whole time (and that is what bothers me!)

The beeper doesn't make any sounds even when there is NO cards at all installed. (and no hard-disk plugged).

So the problem right now is the lack of ANY beeps from the beeper. Anyone has any troubleshoot for that?

thanks anyway for the tips.

Raoul

 

[jg38141]

I agree with ledzep- I had the same problem, I didn't snap my athlon down quite enough mainly cause the heatsink on it was big and in the way, but once I reseated it a couple times, it started up fine.

"Are you saying that I can dodge bullets?"

 

[girish]

well then it must be the cpu problem, such problems do occur with slot cpus (both intel and amd) try replugging the cpu. and check the beeper connections, or try using other speaker for the beeper. audible signals help a lot.

if nothing works then try changing the last piece, the motherboard. it might be better to check each of those cards on some other system before going for some other board.

girish

 

[Guest]

ok, we'll try the cpu again... unfortunatedly we don't have another MB to test it with... at least not without major trouble..

The beeper... well, we might try changing it... I agree that it would help to get audible singals...

ok, now we tried to "rough" it down on place to no help...

this is getting desperate.... (my friend is already calling to his parents to get some sponsorship for a new socket-a mb and duron processor...)

 

[Guest]

Yikes, sounds like you're having fun! Sucks without spares to easily swap around..

If I were you I'd take the WHOLE thing to bits..EVERYTHING..

Clear a desk, get some antistatic bags laid over it and place the motherboard over them. Position the PSU, install one stick of memory or a pair if SIMMs, grapics card, cpu + fan.

Oh yeah and I've seen this so many times when you've already fixed the problem but when you put the memory in - PUT IT IN THE FIRST MODULE! Sometimes you get no display if the first is empty.

I've fixed so many computers with this approach..its worth a try..things look much clearer after you get that board out of the case. I hope you give this a try, good luck!

 

[FUGGER]

Should have purchased Intel based system, live and learn =)

Take the CPU fan off for a few mins while your system is running, should fix the problem in no time.

 

[Guest]

That isn't very helpful and I had the same problem with my very first system. The processor actually died in action while I was playing a game..the processor was an Intel PII 233. Makes no damn difference if its AMD or Intel, both can fail

 

[Grizely1]

It could be your power suppply. Try a 300 watt

 

[Guest]

Fugger..... I read your other posts.... please show some intelligence, and act like you do work at SGI.

My guess is bad MB.....

 

[girish]

thanx for the help fugger. intel based systems are as prone to such things as amd ones. my celeron 300a conked out of nothing (it was a slot 1 cpu) and only thing i could do was to try swapping things around until i could get it to work! no part changed, even the motherboard!! i still have no idea what had happened.

roaul, it might be a problem with the slot cpu, or damaged mobo. just have a shot at some other mobo.

i learn that fugger is at sgi and shows no intelligence.

girish

 

[Kerbear]

Just a thought. You say swapping motherboards would be a piece of work? How about if you take the CPU to a friends instead? See if it works on the system you would swap the board with. If it works you know the CPU is good. If not, well you've narrowed down your problem to the CPU. good luck

Kerbear!!!