Which piece of hardware failed? [bios information] [harddrive]
Q: a system I bought from an ante-cher colleague, and it ended are not capable of and i havent been able to get in contact with them, and im getting kinda impacient so im wondering if anyone can help me i out.
When Press the power button, nothing comes on screen, no beep memory, hard drive makes a noise then stops reading. And the fans is switched off automatically, and it makes the hard drive to do somthing. The BIOS information does not show, my monitor remains in standby and does everything record, everyone knows how I can figure out what it is, thats not working. Im thinking its the motherboard but im not sure, I can take out the memory and the proc and put it on and it does nothing so im wondering if its a bad mobo, there is no real way to find out what exactly is not without spending much money, I tryed replacing memory chips, but i dont have a amd other boards lying around or any other processors.
Thanks Guys,
Mike
Best Answer: This may seem obvious but I would suggest that it would be a driver fault, causing it to crash to the blue screen.
The fact it is running in safe mode suggests that it isnt one of microsofts "core" drivers ( the ones that are loaded in safe mode.) Which means the most likely thing for it to be is something you have added your self recently, maybe a webcam or wifi adapter. or the other alternative is that windows update has wrongly identified one of your pieces of hardware and has updated it with the wrong driver.
Now for the solution,
boot into safe mode and go to control panel, and find system then hardware, ( or it maybe called device manager in vista)
anyway this tells you how to find it http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windowsvis…
then go through and disable everything that isnt essential to your machine, ( i would start by disabling things that dont run in safe mode) then boot back into windows and wait to see if it crashes when it stops you have found your faulty driver, so uninstall it and reinstall from the manufactures website, (not windows update as this most likely caused the problem to start with)
Laptop batteries are notoriously bad anyway and about 1 in 5 go faulty after 12 months ( about 150 Cycles) the chances are that it has just worn away and once they start to go they more or less fail instantly, so i wouldnt worry about this too much. you could try draining the battery then, removing the battery for a few days, before giving it a full charge, but really thats just desperation talking.
Re:Does the power supply fan and heatsink fan come on when you turn the power switch on? Double check the other power switch on the back of the case to make sure it is in the on position.
Re:Well you made a big blunder but came out of it OK. Where did you ever get the idea that you were supposed to turn on the machine with the jumper in the reset position, so you did not figure out the cmos thing, you need to learn to read the manual.
guy
Re:ya i figured out the cmos thing, i moved the pin over to the other side then went to hit the power button and then it didnt even turn on and i jaw just dropped i was like great what did i do now, so i moved the pin back over, and hit the button again it turned on and booted right up just by moving the clearing the cmos thanks for the help guys everythings up and running now.
Mike
Re:to reset the cmos there could a be jumper on the motherboard itself. the easiest way is to go to the maunfacturer of the motherboard, look up your model (it will be printed on the board itself), and read the manual.
Re:is there a way to clear the cmos without the system being on, i've already un plugged and unhooked everything and reattached everthing securly, so i dont think its loose hardware.
If someone could tell me how to go about clearing the cmos with jumpers rather than going into the setup because i cannot get to anything.
I'm also open to any other ideas or tips you may have, thanks alot guys
Mike
Re:Reseat the RAM and CPU. Also check the any cards installed.
(remember to disconnect the POWER)
Things tend to get shakin' and lose when shipped.
Might also want to clear the CMOS while you are at it.
Re:ok still nogo, i unhooked everything from the psu and the mobo, except the mobo from the psu, and still nothing happend, got any other ideas before i try to see what a new mobo would do? btw thanks for the help guy.
Mike
Re:ill see if i can find the exact model, ill try unhooking every part when i get home later, also i've tried both the onboard video and an agp card, i dont have any pci cards to test, but ill see what hapens with just the mobo hooked up.
Thanks Guys,
Mike
Re:Excellent news on the heatsink
Look the motherboard over and see if you can find its model number, that will help me look for ideas to help you.
Also, are you using its onboard video, or an add-in video card? If you've got an add-in card, but the mobo features onboard video, try out the onboard video and see if that changes anything. Try unplugging all the drives from the mobo and from the power supply too, just go bare essentials to start with.
Re:checked the heatsink that didnt change anything and it was on right in the first place, anyone else have any other ideas??
Mike
Re:Ok, hardware:
Biostar MicroATX Mobo (Not sure of exact model)
256mb ram
socket a duron
Ill check out the fan thing you posted and let you know if thats what happended, if anyone else has any ideas please let me know.
Mike
Re:Originally posted by: guy
I bought a system off a fellow antecher, and it ended up coming not in working order, and i havent been able to get in contact with them, and im kinda getting impacient so im wondering if someone can help me out.
When i press the power button, nothing comes up on the screen, there is no memory beep, the harddrive makes a reading sound then stops. The fans run, it turns on and off, it makes the harddrive do somthing. The bios information doesnt show, my monitor stays in standby and doesnt register anything, anyone know how i can figure out what it is, thats not working right. Im thinking its the motherboard but im not sure, i can take out the memory and take out the proc and turn it on and it doesnt do anything so im wondering if its a bad mobo, is there any real way to find out what exactly is failed without spends alot of money, i've tryed substituting memory chips but i dont have any other amd boards lying around or any other processors.
Thanks Guys,
MikeSome details about the hardware would help, but I'm gonna start with the most likely thing:
right (http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/guy/heatsink1L.jpg)
NOT right (http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/guy/wrongL.jpg)
If you put the heatsink on the wrong way, the more-recent motherboards will see the CPU overheating and shut off the power, at least until you fry the CPU from sheer persistence 
That only works on CPUs that have a thermal diode, meaning AthlonXP in the SocketA world.
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Tags: bios information, harddrive