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boot problems, no post, win 98 (long sorry) 1

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BenHunt

Technical User
Jun 29, 2001
5
US
this is 2 posts I posted somewhere else with no help. Thanks for reading.Hey there, About 3 months ago i finished my rig. 1.2 gig athlon on a kt7-raid, 256 of crucial memory,geforce3,sblive platinum etc.
Nothing overclocked.
Tonight I was rebooting but instead I shut down, no biggie right. Well then I tried to power on again but nothing happened.
I hear the fans come on and the HD starts to read but my monitor light blinks and no boot screen comes up. Nor are there post beeps.
This is what I tried after I checked all the connections.
1. Put a disk in a: to see if I could boot from there. Nope.
2. There was a cd in the drive but it wouldnt open and the light stayed on so I disconnected power to it thinking for some reason it was trying to boot from the disk.
No help.
3.I took out the memory to see if it would post. Nope.
4. I removed the jumper from the cmos setting and turned it on. Nope. Replaced it in the correct place. Nope.
So what do you think the problem is? I couldn't locate a light on the Mobo so I coulnd't tell if all of it was getting juice. The HDD is a 6.8 old maxtor but I thought that the shelf life on that would be a bit longer than 4 years ( I scavenged it from an old comp and formatted it).
The only other time it didnt post beep was the first time I set it up...ever since then it has worked fine. Except now

Update.

I took out the cmos battery and pulled the jumper yesterday before I went to work. When I got home I put them back in and lo and behold it booted. I reset my cmos and checked the settings in my bios...no problem.
So what I did then was run norton system works which only found one problem which was defrag, no biggie there. I checked all the settings and drivers and nothing seemed out of place.
The first time I thought everything went wrong because I left a disk in the disktray when I shutdown. I know it sounds silly but that was the last thing that happened before these problems. Well this time I tried to reboot without anything in the disktray and the same thing happened.
so what the hell? The tray on my tdk wont open, the light stays on etc.
I've disconnected everything except the video card, ram, and HD. Nothing. I've changed the voltage incase it wasnt getting enough juice. Nope. I switched out video cards. nope. The fans start running and the HD starts moving but nothing. Right now Im just thinking of taking it all apart and rebuilding it to see what happens.
I can't power down when it tries to reboot unless I hold down the power button and thats usually on the third try. This is frustrating.

Athlon 1.2
Abit KT7-Raid
256 Crucial
Maxtor 12 gig hd
Tdk cd burner
Herc G-force 3
Linksys nic card
SBLive platinum.
Klipsch speakers.
Samsung 955 monitor.


 
M/B problem. Crystal not clocking the processor in all likelyhood. Probably need a logic probe to see if address and data are hitting the bios or other chip.
Fans and hard drive should spin with voltage with or without the m/b working. And no beeps indicate no post which was obvious anyway.
You might try reseating cpu and memory, cpu for potential creep, memory cause the contacts tend to corrode. I've seen some that hang early in post with bad memory, Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 
Ok after trying everything known to man since my last post here I decided that I have a mobo problem. Ive read every post I could find on the internet about computers not posting etc and nothing has helped. Last night I finally got the computer booted up and running for about 6 hours until I decided to call it a night. Well this morning there was no booting going on again. Took it apart again, tried everything all over again. Nothing. I've replaced everything in the case except for the HD and the CPU with known working parts (the ones in this computer).

Well then I went and bought another motherboard. The exact same problem. No boot etc. I have questions.

1. Could it be that my HD is not reading its boot sector? Would I get any post beeps if this were the case? Could it be that my HD failed? It never made any weird noises.

2. Could I have somehow fried my chip? What symptoms would I get from that?

It's possible I bought a bad mother(shut your mouth)board. But really what are the chances of that? I need to get this computer working soon for work purposes. CPU or HD which can I fault?
 
Well if nothing comes up when you turn the system on and no beeps come on and you have tried several parts it has to be the PROCESSOR. Your hard drive most of the time would not cause it to not POST. UNLESS the cables are on backwards. But then you usually get something on the screen. I would try another Processor. I think that is your problem. Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.


James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net
 
There are several things that can cause it. Best to take it to absolute minimum. M/B , ram, processor, and video. Power connection , power on switch , reset offboard connector and keyboard. With monitor warm you should get a video splash screen and post.
There is a power good signal that comes off the power supply that controls the oscillator. If the PS doesn't give power good you get this failure.
You might also pull the reset offboard. Partial short on the switch would do the same.
The fact that it came up once would lead me to suspect the PS , memory, or flakey video card. Video hasn't been mentioned before, but it grabs the system before the POST begins.
I've also seen stuff like this when the voltage select switch was incorrectly set. And when it fails to post, do the keyboard lights come on for a second or so. This to check for voltage on power up. If the cd power is plugged in , it should get a drive select light for several seconds.
Hang tough. You're smarter than the computer. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 
hey benhunt
i am having the exact same problem as you are. i was having coolng issues so i pulled off my heatsink and fan and reapplied compound (which was dried to nothing). out of nowhere it decides not to post. i have a really bad feeling that our problem is cpu related.

i, for one, am going to pull the heatsink and fan off and put it back on again.

good luck!
 
hey breathe....did u pull the heatsink off the cpu right after you shutdown the computer?
 
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