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#1
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PC no longer booting
Hi,
Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. |
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#2
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PC no longer booting
In ,
barrowhill typed: Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Well you have two video cards. Switch SLI mode off (if there is a switch) and remove the second video card. If that doesn't work, replace that video card with the other one and give that a shot. -- Bill Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC Windows XP SP2 |
#3
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PC no longer booting
"barrowhill" wrote in message ... Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Upon restart, did you get your POST screen, or is it just blank from the moment it's turned on? If you get the POST screen, then press F8 repeatedly and see if you can start up in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Command Prompt. If you can get into Safe Mode, roll back the driver for the video card through Device Manager. If no Safe Mode, but you can get into Safe Mode with Command Prompt, you can attempt to restore your system to an earlier time by typing in %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe (for Windows XP) %systemroot%\system32\rstrui.exe (for Windows 7) and pressing Enter (I know you said the OS is Win7, but this is an XP group :-) ). The normal System Restore GUI will come up, and you can then pick a time before the driver update was installed. If you can't get into either mode, turn the PC off, pull the power cord, open it up, and remove the video card. Plug it back in and turn it on. You'll get a series of beeps, meaning that there is no video card installed. Turn it back off, unplug it, and put the card back in. Turn it on and see if you have video again. If so, roll back the video driver as soon as you are able to navigate through Windows. (Of course, this suggestion is moot if it's an onboard video chip.) -- SC Tom |
#4
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PC no longer booting
"BillW50" wrote in message ... In , barrowhill typed: Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Well you have two video cards. Switch SLI mode off (if there is a switch) and remove the second video card. If that doesn't work, replace that video card with the other one and give that a shot. -- Bill Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC Windows XP SP2 Well, shucks, I missed that before I replied :-( -- SC Tom |
#5
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PC no longer booting
Bill,
There is no switch. There is a SODIM style chip on mobo : one way for SLI the other for normal. I changed to normal. Tried card 1 slot 1 - NOK, tried card 1 slot 2 - NOK. Tried Card 2 slot 1 - NOK. Tried Card 2 slot 2 - NOK. Tried both with card 1 slot 1 and card 2 slot 2 then reverse still NOK. Tested memory in another machine OK and checked PSU and OK. Replaced CMOS battery. Can't test Graphics cards as other machines don't have PCIe connectors. "BillW50" wrote in message ... In , barrowhill typed: Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Well you have two video cards. Switch SLI mode off (if there is a switch) and remove the second video card. If that doesn't work, replace that video card with the other one and give that a shot. -- Bill Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC Windows XP SP2 |
#6
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PC no longer booting
SC Tom,
No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? "SC Tom" wrote in message ... "barrowhill" wrote in message ... Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Upon restart, did you get your POST screen, or is it just blank from the moment it's turned on? If you get the POST screen, then press F8 repeatedly and see if you can start up in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Command Prompt. If you can get into Safe Mode, roll back the driver for the video card through Device Manager. If no Safe Mode, but you can get into Safe Mode with Command Prompt, you can attempt to restore your system to an earlier time by typing in %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe (for Windows XP) %systemroot%\system32\rstrui.exe (for Windows 7) and pressing Enter (I know you said the OS is Win7, but this is an XP group :-) ). The normal System Restore GUI will come up, and you can then pick a time before the driver update was installed. If you can't get into either mode, turn the PC off, pull the power cord, open it up, and remove the video card. Plug it back in and turn it on. You'll get a series of beeps, meaning that there is no video card installed. Turn it back off, unplug it, and put the card back in. Turn it on and see if you have video again. If so, roll back the video driver as soon as you are able to navigate through Windows. (Of course, this suggestion is moot if it's an onboard video chip.) -- SC Tom |
#7
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PC no longer booting
In ,
barrowhill wrote: SC Tom, No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? Well not yet. Any fans or power lights? Anyway it is time to remove all unnecessary devices like CD, DVD, extra RAM, and the alike. I would even try removing all hard drives as well just to see if it powers up. Even swap the one removed RAM with the other. The idea here is one device is loading the power supply down. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#8
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PC no longer booting
In ,
SC Tom wrote: "BillW50" wrote in message ... Well you have two video cards. Switch SLI mode off (if there is a switch) and remove the second video card. If that doesn't work, replace that video card with the other one and give that a shot. Well, shucks, I missed that before I replied :-( Well I was also thinking of saying what you did too. Glad I didn't now, as we would have said the very same thing. ;-) -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#9
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PC no longer booting
Bill,
PSU and 3 case fans working (and lit), Removed power and interface connections for 2 x DVD and 2 x HDD. Also removed front panel mobo connectors for USB ports and Card Reader RAM chips OK as removed and tested in another machine without problems - swapped chips between machines and back as well So only thing running now is Processor, Graphics cards and Fan's. Monitor still blank - here I've changed cable and connected another monitor with same result; blank screen. Perhaps I should try and reseat/reseal CPU ?? "BillW50" wrote in message ... In , barrowhill wrote: SC Tom, No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? Well not yet. Any fans or power lights? Anyway it is time to remove all unnecessary devices like CD, DVD, extra RAM, and the alike. I would even try removing all hard drives as well just to see if it powers up. Even swap the one removed RAM with the other. The idea here is one device is loading the power supply down. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#10
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PC no longer booting
In ,
barrowhill wrote: Bill, PSU and 3 case fans working (and lit), Removed power and interface connections for 2 x DVD and 2 x HDD. Also removed front panel mobo connectors for USB ports and Card Reader RAM chips OK as removed and tested in another machine without problems - swapped chips between machines and back as well So only thing running now is Processor, Graphics cards and Fan's. Monitor still blank - here I've changed cable and connected another monitor with same result; blank screen. Perhaps I should try and reseat/reseal CPU ?? Yes it is worth a shot, but it sure doesn't look good at this point. :-( -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#11
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PC no longer booting
Looks like only thing left to try as I'm certainly running out of idea's.
I'll do this tomorrow and report back as to success or not. I've a feeling though that I'll be telling my friend his mobo has 'kicked the bucket' "BillW50" wrote in message ... In , barrowhill wrote: Bill, PSU and 3 case fans working (and lit), Removed power and interface connections for 2 x DVD and 2 x HDD. Also removed front panel mobo connectors for USB ports and Card Reader RAM chips OK as removed and tested in another machine without problems - swapped chips between machines and back as well So only thing running now is Processor, Graphics cards and Fan's. Monitor still blank - here I've changed cable and connected another monitor with same result; blank screen. Perhaps I should try and reseat/reseal CPU ?? Yes it is worth a shot, but it sure doesn't look good at this point. :-( -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#12
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PC no longer booting
"barrowhill" wrote in message ... SC Tom, No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? From the rest of your replies here, I'd be leaning that way, too. If everything has been unplugged/removed, and there still are no beeps, it's probably the mobo, power supply, or a bad connection between the two. Odds are, there isn't an off-board speaker. Most have the speaker built onto the mobo- look for a round black plastic piece about the diameter of a dime. That would be your speaker. -- SC Tom "SC Tom" wrote in message ... "barrowhill" wrote in message ... Hi, Received friends PC last night with a view to fixing for him. (Only) reported fault was no (USB) KB or mouse (?), Mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8NUSL-RG, AMD 64 Dual Core 4600+ processor, 2 x 1 GByte RAM. and dual GCSLISW-RH graphics cards running in SLI mode. O/S is Windows 7 Ultimate Connected PS/2 KB and mouse and on boot presented with DOS window indicating error had occurred and whether I required to repair (via CD) or start windows normally. Opted to start normally (why not) just to see what happened. It got to Windows starting icon and hung for some time and just as I was about to press reset it continued to desktop after completing (earlier) update installs Decided to remain with PS/2 configuration and check for further updates to PC. Eventually completed all updates after a few hours work with multiple restarts and restarted one last time to check all OK and then switched off until this morning. Started up this morning and promptly got unrecoverable hardware error code 0x0124. Pressed restart and on reboot no video - nothing showing on screen at all! That is still position One suspect is Graphics because previously experienced starting delays on another win 7 PC when booting, Turned out that despite win 7 compatibility testing, card wasn't in fact compatible. Similar time lag on this PC. Also, there was an update for the card which, I'm now regretting, I downloaded and installed. Didn't have problems using last night with multiple restarts since installation of update. I don't have a spare PCI express graphics card to try so stuck. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there something or anything else I should be looking at/trying. Help much appreciated. Upon restart, did you get your POST screen, or is it just blank from the moment it's turned on? If you get the POST screen, then press F8 repeatedly and see if you can start up in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Command Prompt. If you can get into Safe Mode, roll back the driver for the video card through Device Manager. If no Safe Mode, but you can get into Safe Mode with Command Prompt, you can attempt to restore your system to an earlier time by typing in %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe (for Windows XP) %systemroot%\system32\rstrui.exe (for Windows 7) and pressing Enter (I know you said the OS is Win7, but this is an XP group :-) ). The normal System Restore GUI will come up, and you can then pick a time before the driver update was installed. If you can't get into either mode, turn the PC off, pull the power cord, open it up, and remove the video card. Plug it back in and turn it on. You'll get a series of beeps, meaning that there is no video card installed. Turn it back off, unplug it, and put the card back in. Turn it on and see if you have video again. If so, roll back the video driver as soon as you are able to navigate through Windows. (Of course, this suggestion is moot if it's an onboard video chip.) -- SC Tom |
#13
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PC no longer booting
SC Tom wrote:
"barrowhill" wrote in message ... SC Tom, No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? From the rest of your replies here, I'd be leaning that way, too. If everything has been unplugged/removed, and there still are no beeps, it's probably the mobo, power supply, or a bad connection between the two. Odds are, there isn't an off-board speaker. Most have the speaker built onto the mobo- look for a round black plastic piece about the diameter of a dime. That would be your speaker. GA-K8NU-SLI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128279 It's an Nforce4 SLI, using a paddlecard for the two PCI Express slots. Turned one way, the paddle card will route all PCI Express lanes to the blue video card slot. Turned the other way and inserted, the paddle card will cause half the available PCI Express lanes to go to each slot. If you're running two video cards, then the paddle card must be in the correct position, as otherwise, the second video card (in the black slot) gets no bus connections. The motherboard has no onboard speaker or piezo electric device. An onboard speaker tends to be used on OEM motherboards inside the major brand names (HP/Dell/Acer/Gateway etc). If instead, you buy a retail motherboard at your local computer store, and build your own computer from parts, those retail motherboards don't have the speaker. And then, the computer case has to provide the speaker. There are a few enthusiast cases (relatively expensive ones) that come with no speaker, for no discernible reason. And in such a case, you have to buy a "speaker plus pigtail" as a separate part, if you expect to "listen for beeps". I think this thread already has some excellent suggestions, basically to simplify the hardware setup and retest. I would add one further test case. 1) Remove RAM. 2) Remove both video cards. 3) Leave CPU plus heatsink/fan installed. 4) Make sure the computer internal case speaker is connected. 5) Do a test, with basically just the processor and motherboard. The processor should read the BIOS, and attempt to find RAM and video. When no RAM and video is found, a distinctive beep pattern should come through the case speaker. That particular Gigabyte motherboard seems to have dual BIOS chips. I see two chips, just above the blue video card connector. At least, in the past, Gigabyte dual BIOS, had one boot block, and two main BIOS code blocks, so the dual chips don't represent true duality. There is still a dependence on a single boot block to be present, and if that gets wiped, it isn't going to POST (power on self test) and display anything on the screen. The OP mentioned no issues with keeping BIOS settings. Some computers will not start, if the CMOS coin cell is flat. Using a multimeter, leave the battery in its socket, clip your ground onto a screw in the I/O plate area of the computer, then probe with the multimeter red lead, the top surface of the CR2032 coin cell battery. A good battery would be around 3V. A bad battery, is anything below about perhaps 2.4V. The battery voltage declines relatively rapidly when the knee is reached, so can drop to zero in no time. For some reason, some motherboards won't start when the battery is flat, even though the +5VSB derived path from the power supply is operational and providing duplicate power in parallel with the battery (using diode steering, so the coin cell cannot be charged). Some SuperI/O chips, have a provision to connect Vbat as an input, but I don't know if the SuperI/O will deny startup, if Vbat is flat or not. I thought the Vbat connection was purely for monitoring as a hardware monitor ADC input. If the battery is flat, it should be replaced, and the tests run again. In the past, there have been some Hvidia chipsets, with static sensitive video card slots. It's possible to "blow out" a slot, and the PCI express lanes would be failed as a result. In such a case, the installation of something like an old FX5200 PCI video card, can be used in an attempt to evaluate the computer. I keep one of those in my tool box, for stuff like this. Whether the paddle card is in either position, the blue slot should always work. The black video card slot, only works if the paddle card is in the SLI position. Barrowhill could try a check of the condition of the capacitors on the motherboard, but since there were no crashes mentioned, or anything to indicate previous instability, I'd discount that as a theory. A flat CMOS coin cell is a possibility. A blown PCI Express lane or lanes is another possibility, especially as a lot of hardware has been handled recently. It's even possible, that PCI Express slot failures, can occur without handling things, so a previous ESD event might contribute to something failing. Checking the history of that chipset, in some forum, would be the best way to determine how ESD sensitive that chipset is. Power supplies can fail, but in this case, there is no mention of previous problems in that area. Paul |
#14
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PC no longer booting
*** reply in line
"Paul" wrote in message ... SC Tom wrote: "barrowhill" wrote in message ... SC Tom, No POST just blank from the moment it's turned on. No beep code sounds at all but that may be because I can't see/find speaker anywhere in (Packard Bell) case. See all by reply to Bill re additional checks etc. I'm beginning to think that mobo has gone AWOL. Would you agree ??? From the rest of your replies here, I'd be leaning that way, too. If everything has been unplugged/removed, and there still are no beeps, it's probably the mobo, power supply, or a bad connection between the two. Odds are, there isn't an off-board speaker. Most have the speaker built onto the mobo- look for a round black plastic piece about the diameter of a dime. That would be your speaker. GA-K8NU-SLI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128279 It's an Nforce4 SLI, using a paddlecard for the two PCI Express slots. Turned one way, the paddle card will route all PCI Express lanes to the blue video card slot. Turned the other way and inserted, the paddle card will cause half the available PCI Express lanes to go to each slot. If you're running two video cards, then the paddle card must be in the correct position, as otherwise, the second video card (in the black slot) gets no bus connections. The motherboard has no onboard speaker or piezo electric device. An onboard speaker tends to be used on OEM motherboards inside the major brand names (HP/Dell/Acer/Gateway etc). If instead, you buy a retail motherboard at your local computer store, and build your own computer from parts, those retail motherboards don't have the speaker. And then, the computer case has to provide the speaker. There are a few enthusiast cases (relatively expensive ones) that come with no speaker, for no discernible reason. And in such a case, you have to buy a "speaker plus pigtail" as a separate part, if you expect to "listen for beeps". *** You're correct on that; my old OEM board had the piezo device on it, but my new (to me) M2NPV-VM doesn't. It has the solder points and silkscreen for one, though. I have sound through a USB sound card and no internal speaker at all (with or without a pigtail- I looked), but when I boot up, I get the POST beeps from somewhere inside the PC (no power to the sound system at that time). I'll have to pull the side of the case the next time I reboot to see where it's coming from, but there's no obvious spot. It's a small to mid tower (Compaq SR1124nx) that I've had for years, and it's the only factory thing left. Everything in it has been replaced at one time or another, and I am yet to find a speaker :-) That's why I assumed the beeps were coming from the MB. -- SC Tom I think this thread already has some excellent suggestions, basically to simplify the hardware setup and retest. I would add one further test case. 1) Remove RAM. 2) Remove both video cards. 3) Leave CPU plus heatsink/fan installed. 4) Make sure the computer internal case speaker is connected. 5) Do a test, with basically just the processor and motherboard. The processor should read the BIOS, and attempt to find RAM and video. When no RAM and video is found, a distinctive beep pattern should come through the case speaker. That particular Gigabyte motherboard seems to have dual BIOS chips. I see two chips, just above the blue video card connector. At least, in the past, Gigabyte dual BIOS, had one boot block, and two main BIOS code blocks, so the dual chips don't represent true duality. There is still a dependence on a single boot block to be present, and if that gets wiped, it isn't going to POST (power on self test) and display anything on the screen. The OP mentioned no issues with keeping BIOS settings. Some computers will not start, if the CMOS coin cell is flat. Using a multimeter, leave the battery in its socket, clip your ground onto a screw in the I/O plate area of the computer, then probe with the multimeter red lead, the top surface of the CR2032 coin cell battery. A good battery would be around 3V. A bad battery, is anything below about perhaps 2.4V. The battery voltage declines relatively rapidly when the knee is reached, so can drop to zero in no time. For some reason, some motherboards won't start when the battery is flat, even though the +5VSB derived path from the power supply is operational and providing duplicate power in parallel with the battery (using diode steering, so the coin cell cannot be charged). Some SuperI/O chips, have a provision to connect Vbat as an input, but I don't know if the SuperI/O will deny startup, if Vbat is flat or not. I thought the Vbat connection was purely for monitoring as a hardware monitor ADC input. If the battery is flat, it should be replaced, and the tests run again. In the past, there have been some Hvidia chipsets, with static sensitive video card slots. It's possible to "blow out" a slot, and the PCI express lanes would be failed as a result. In such a case, the installation of something like an old FX5200 PCI video card, can be used in an attempt to evaluate the computer. I keep one of those in my tool box, for stuff like this. Whether the paddle card is in either position, the blue slot should always work. The black video card slot, only works if the paddle card is in the SLI position. Barrowhill could try a check of the condition of the capacitors on the motherboard, but since there were no crashes mentioned, or anything to indicate previous instability, I'd discount that as a theory. A flat CMOS coin cell is a possibility. A blown PCI Express lane or lanes is another possibility, especially as a lot of hardware has been handled recently. It's even possible, that PCI Express slot failures, can occur without handling things, so a previous ESD event might contribute to something failing. Checking the history of that chipset, in some forum, would be the best way to determine how ESD sensitive that chipset is. Power supplies can fail, but in this case, there is no mention of previous problems in that area. Paul |
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PC no longer booting
SC Tom wrote:
*** You're correct on that; my old OEM board had the piezo device on it, but my new (to me) M2NPV-VM doesn't. It has the solder points and silkscreen for one, though. I have sound through a USB sound card and no internal speaker at all (with or without a pigtail- I looked), but when I boot up, I get the POST beeps from somewhere inside the PC (no power to the sound system at that time). I'll have to pull the side of the case the next time I reboot to see where it's coming from, but there's no obvious spot. It's a small to mid tower (Compaq SR1124nx) that I've had for years, and it's the only factory thing left. Everything in it has been replaced at one time or another, and I am yet to find a speaker :-) That's why I assumed the beeps were coming from the MB. The computer cases I have here, they like to hide the speaker in the front plastic fascia. If you take the thing all apart, eventually you might be rewarded with a 2" speaker or the like. If you trace where the SPKR connector and two wire cable go, you'll eventually find it. It can't escape :-) Start at the motherboard PANEL header, and work your way back, following the two wire twisted pair. When I get a new computer case, I take special pleasure in disassembling the thing, and removing the bits I don't want. For example, the first thing to go, are the front USB or Firewire ports, the audio connectors and wires. By removing those and saving them for later, I have less cruft hanging down inside the computer. Since my computers are always at desk level, and oriented so I have access to the rear connectors, there is no need for front connectors. I started this practice, after finding wiring errors on some of my older cases, and rather than wasting time catching those errors before they burn or damage something, I just got in the habit of tearing them out. But I always keep the speaker, due to the ability to do "beep tests" if something breaks. Some computers (Dell) have a four LED display on the case, using two color LEDs. And those can give diagnostic codes, indicating a problem. Some retail motherboards (typically Nvidia motherboards resold by other companies), have a two digit POST code right on the motherboard surface. The actual codes aren't of much use, but the ability to see whether the POST display will work at all, helps identify whether the processor is able to read the BIOS or not. If the POST display stays stuck at 0xFF or 0x00, then chances are the processor isn't running for some reason (stuck in reset, no power etc). Any other of the remaining 254 decimal codes, indicates something is going on, but usually there is no reliable documentation of the code values, and even if there is documentation, the codes don't focus on a single fault at all. So they're not really that useful. In all the cases, where a person has posted the value they got off their display, when I looked up the code, no good came of it (the user was none the wiser). Now, a feature I liked, but which is no longer used, was the Winbond audio post device. It was a chip that would play back voice messages, to tell you what was going on. These would be triggered by writing a control byte in the chip, via BIOS code. But unlike the POST display, the events were designed to be a bit more useful. The audio was coupled into the regular Line Out connector, so the "bitchen betty" voice came out of your amplified external computer speakers. Asus put that on their motherboards for several years, and then gave up on it. It probably cost them a dollar or two per motherboard (audio playback chip plus serial EEPROM). There was even a utility, so you could record your own voice for the samples if you wanted (it took 30 to 60 minutes to re-program the serial EEPROM). By comparison, the computer case (internal) speaker is a bit boring, but at least it is common enough, that some useful testing can be done. Paul |
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