where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Suddenly, for no paarant reason, my GF computer (Athalon 1.6g, 256mb ram, 80gb WD hdd running W2000professional) decides in order to start up, you must hit the power putton, and then a few seconds later, pull the plug(disconnecting the power) and then power it up again. The first time you power up,the video screen doesn't show anything, and the computer makes no sounds, no HDD spinning up, nothing, but, like I said, pull the plug, and start up again and all is fine. It will restart with no problems, but if you pwer donw and startup, you must do the pull the plug process again. The computer has been up until now been running fine. I stripped it down to MOBO, HDD and RAM< and it sitll does it. Swapped the RAM, cleaned and reseated everything, same problem. Windows, the more I work with it the more I love my Macs. Any ideas? Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miroslav Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Originally posted by where02190: Windows, the more I work with it the more I love my Macs.But with Windows...you have the ability to mess with your system until you totally screw it up! OK...I'm just a wolf in geek's clothing... Start by changing/disabling all the Windows Power options. You them in the Windows System section....and also in BIOS, though the BOIS is probably fine as-is...unless you were in there recently mucking about. Have you recently done any changes/installations...? I also have a W2K system...and pulling the plug is the only way to completely kill it...'cuz it seems to always be in some "standby" mode. When I shut mine down...if I pull the plug, and then reinsert...I can hear something inside power up. It's probably just a low level function...but, you power up/down sequence my have gotten screwed up. miroslav - miroslavmusic.com "Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanmass Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Try another power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 All power options disabled, default BIOS settings loaded. PSU is fine. Fekk'n windoze. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miroslav Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Well...next thing might be to reinstall your current Service Pack... ...and then if that don't do it...after that... ...try an OS recovery/repair. Could be a hosed power management sys file... ...or, could it be hardware failure... ...??? miroslav - miroslavmusic.com "Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 I completely reformatted the drive and reinstalled the OS. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djwayne Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Sounds like it's in the motherboard or video card. I have a GE Force 5200 video card that started acting up like that after the fan went out on it. We took off the fan and put on a heat sink and occassionaly the computer will boot up but nothing on the screen, so it requires a restart. Second restart usually is fine though. Living' in the shadow, of someone else's dream.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 Changed video card, no change. Video card works fine in other machine. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djwayne Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Do you have another monitor to try switching ?? If so maybe it's in the monitor.... Living' in the shadow, of someone else's dream.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 MOnitor is fine also, swapped it out with another monitor, and put this one on another PC. The monitor worked fin on the other computer, and the swapped out monitor did the same thing. It's something in the bootup sequence I'm certain, and not hardware related, since I've swapped out everything except MOBO and processor, and once the machine boots on the second try, everything operates fine. It's got to be some software/BOISO setting somewhere, but since frikk'n PC's don't speak english like my macs do, I'm in the dark. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djwayne Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 maybe it's the lithium battery on the motherboard getting weak, I've also had that happen with my MAC LC III. Beyong that though, I'd have to talk to my computer guru, who may have an answer later tonight. What type of motherboard is it ?? How old is it ?? Living' in the shadow, of someone else's dream.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 New battery installed, CMOS cleared several times. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BP3 Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 See if there's a newer version of the BIOS. If so, install it and go from there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 OK now you're over my head, how do I do that? Where would I find it?(I assume online, but being a Mac guy I'm major clueless on CP's, just enough knowledge to be dangerous ya know...) Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dak Lander Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 You probably have a powersupply going south. I've had similar problems that turned out to be just that, power supply. Don't forget that it is connected to the mobo for reasons other than simply suppling power, as in earlier PCs. Power supplys are cheap if you don't need an ultra quiet unit and easy to install. Our Joint "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it." The Duke... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Heins Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 I'll second on the bad power supply advice. A bad power supply will work intermittently and cause the kind of problems you are experiencing. Hope you get the problem fixed You know for all the PC bashing you do I've seen a disproportionate amount of Mac problems here considering their marketshare If it's electronic there's always a good chance it will fail in some way, be it PC, Mac, or toasteroven( yes even the mighty toasteroven!). Darkon the Incandescent http://www.billheins.com/ Hail Vibrania! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 I think I stated I swapped PSU's and there was no change, but in case I didn't now I have. Not to get into a PC/Mac thing, my 3 macs have never given me any issues that a simple 2-3 minute maintainance utility didn't cure in the 7 years I've had them. Some people like em, some don't. For me the Macs work ALL the time, the PC is a crapshoot. I need reliablity, and I know the platform, so that's what I stick with, because for me it works. Personally I would never use one except for a few apps I must have one, mostly for the automation in my console, which is PC only. IF it wasn't for that I wouldn't even have one. Mucho appreciatto to all those who have posted suggestions. Maybe if enough are heard from, eventually we'll stumble across the answer. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boosh Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 It's something you have installed on to a USB port I'm sure..... Fan, nu pissar jag taggtråd igen. Jag skulle inte satt på räpan. http://www.bushcollectors.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dak Lander Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Originally posted by where02190: I think I stated I swapped PSU's and there was no change, but in case I didn't now I have. Actually, you stated the PSU was fine, not replaced with a known good unit. Again, I've had similar issues and most times it was the psu, including bad out of the box. That's why the remark about a known good psu. I've also had similar issues that were caused by a bad hard drive. You said you'd stripped down to the bare necessities but the hdd was still in the loop. Swap that out, or just unplug it and see if your problem is gone. Our Joint "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it." The Duke... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 I did at one point disconnect the HDD and boot from disc, sorry I've done so much crap I can't remember all of it, and again, the same thing, had to boot, pull the power, and boot again, then all was fine. The only thing that hasn't been swapped or bypassed is the MOBO and processor. I know it's a Peecee, but I really think it's something OS related or BIOS/CMOS related. I've done a couple clean installs, so I think I can rule out the OS at this point. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 This has NOTHING to do with Windows Where... sorry, but if it isn't powering up, it has not even started to load the OS... you'd get the same problems if you had Unix loaded instead of Windows. Power supply going south was my first thought too, but if you've tried a replacement, then it's probably BIOS settings or a bad CMOS battery on the mobo. I'd suggest you boot it, enter BIOS, write down all your settings on paper, and then pull the plug, yank the CMOS battery for a couple of minutes (which should reset the BIOS), test the CMOS battery for charge, then put it back in and try rebooting and see if that clears it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Yeah, let's get where's machine running first, before we start up on the PC/Mac thing. A BIOS re-flash should be easy -- as long as you can download the BIOS software (or have it already). A friend recently found that American Megatrends had 'farmed out' support for their motherboards to a(n apparent) third party -- who wanted something like $80 (!!!) just for the few hundred K of BIOS program. Since you can buy a whol new mobo and processor for that... [i'll NEVER buy a mobo with an AMI BIOS in it, again, you can bet on that!] Anyhow, assuming you can DL the BIOS (or have it stashed away) flashing software it's pretty much as easy as copying it to a bootable floppy (or it may be a disk image that you copy to a blank floppy) and then allowing the machine to boot from the floppy. (It's possible your machine may be set to boot from the HD first, in which case you go into the BIOS setup [often accessible by pressing a particular key during the brief BIOS bootstrapping routine during bootup] and change the boot sequence to be floppy first.) [PS... if it makes you feel any better, I was completely at sea setting up my friends' Mac a few weeks ago. What looks like English to you, looked like Greek to me. I had to get on the horn with one of my Mac buddies to correlate the Mac terminologies with my own understanding. But I'll be the first to second your opinion that system access in Windows is a disgraceful, confusing mess in many areas.] bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 Thanks Phil, but I already reset the CMOS several times to no avail, and replaced the battery. I've no idea where to look for this BIOS flash, can someone point me to a site? Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip OKeefe Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 BIOS updates are usually available on the manufactuer's website. For example, if it's an Asus mobo, you can find them at www.asus.com Good luck - gotta run to a session... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dak Lander Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 You'll need the bios numbers that show during the initial boot sequence. You'll have to be fast. Then, you should be able to find the flash utility or a link, on the bios website, or the mobo mfg's website. Amptron, Award? Run a google search for; ("bios flash utility") It'll pull up lots of sites and help. Our Joint "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it." The Duke... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 There is no way I'm going to be able to get any of the info that flashes by when it boots up, some of it is so fast I can't even get a letter or two, never mind the entire screens worth of stuff. I'll check the MOBO manufacturer, and I found a dics that is from the MOBO that I think has the procedure for flashing. More later, and thanks again all. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djwayne Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 While were on the subject of computers, bios things, MAC's, I decided to change the Lithium battery in the MAC LC III, it's been a while..$13.99 at Radio Shack for a 1.6 volt battery, ouch !! After changing the battery, all I had to do was reset the time and date. Other than that it works like brand new...yea !! Living' in the shadow, of someone else's dream.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 30, 2005 Author Share Posted January 30, 2005 OK flashed the BIOS, quite simple and good instructions from the manufacturers website(Abit). No change. I think I give up. It's working about as good as I expect a PC will work. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudioMaverick Posted January 30, 2005 Share Posted January 30, 2005 Originally posted by where02190: S... The first time you power up,the video screen doesn't show anything, and the computer makes no sounds, no HDD spinning up, nothing, but, like I said, pull the plug, and start up again and all is fine. It will restart with no problems, but if you pwer donw and startup, you must do the pull the plug process again. The computer has been up until now been running fine. I stripped it down to MOBO, HDD and RAM< and it sitll does it. Swapped the RAM, cleaned and reseated everything, same problem. Windows, the more I work with it the more I love my Macs. Any ideas?Well, you have narrowed it down to the MoBo or the CPU. The P.O.S.T (Power On Self Test) sequence has to do things in a particular order. And, to me, it sounds like the first thing isn't happening properly... CPU Reset. Things to check... . 1. -- The reset button being backwards (Normally closed when it should be normally opened). . 2. -- Any internal cables that may have gotten reconnected incorrectly. COM port cable, Internal USB or Firewire that was reconnected. Floopy drive cable not inserted all the way. . 3. -- Voltages reported by the BIOS. Check the +/- 12 volts as wellas the 5. They should be with a few hundredths (i.e. +4.97 to +5.03). . 4. -- Possible CPU issue. It may have suffered heat damage and is on the way out. It may just need tobe reseated. . 5. -- MoBo clearance with the stand offs. Or, a needed screw for grounding is not tight. . 6. -- Any cable connecting to the MoBo is fair game for testing. What happens if you try to power up with out the video card plugged in? Do you get the infamous beeps (either 8 shorts or 1 long follwed by 3 shorts)? Do you still get nothing? What happens if you try to power up with out RAM? Should get long beeps evenly spaced. Do you get nothing? What happens if you disable "Quick or Fast Boot" in the BIOS and set the Boot order to Flopp-CD-HDD? If you are still having the problem by now, my guess is the MoBo. "It's all about the... um-m-m, uh-h-h..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanmass Posted January 31, 2005 Share Posted January 31, 2005 Ok... I am betting that this is NOTHING to do with WinDoze. Se if it will boot from CD or floppy. If so, windowze hd, if not, hardware issue. Since you have swapped power supplies, I am wondering if the motherboard is shorting out against the case some where? If you can, remove the motherboard, and look for contact points/burnt/heated marks. Check the little insulator circle things that go around the screws that connect to the mother board. Swap out or replace ALL the inner cables. Maybe one has a break or bare spot ( IDE/FLOPPY) Check your pins where the power switch connectors are. Broken? Bent? Touching? If you have both a reset and a power switch, swap them to the connectors, i.e. power switch (2 connector) to reset pins, and vice versa. Remove the cooling fan from the CPU and re-apply the thermal paste that transfers heat between the chip and the cooling fins. Make sure the fan is spinning up Make sure the fins are not plugged with crud ( I saw that yuo had cleaned it, but I am being over-detailed here) It really, really sounds like a short or PS supply issue, especially since yuo flashed the BIOS. Through it all, how much would it cost you to run down to the local computers du jour store and graba bundled mobo/chip? I am betting you could get the pair for under $100. Might be worth it even if you find the problem is elsewhere just to have the spare. Just a thought... I know it is frustrating sometimes ( I am a cross platform users too), but sometimes with PC's, you just have to come to terms with the replacing parts theory and that the universe just made it break somehow. I hope this is constructive and good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.