Freeze at "Checking NVRAM.."

[Richard Parker]

Hi all,

I just got an old server from work, and thought I'd set it up at home. The
thing was working fine then (5 days ago). All that changed was that we took
out the hard drive. I tried booting it up at home, and now it won't get past
"Checking NVRAM.." - it always hangs here. The system is:

PII 266Mhz
PCChips M720II Mboard
Matrox MGA G100A/4/HP vid card
128Mb PC-100 ram in DIMM-1

It had 2 other ram sticks in it, I've tested all three (individually and
together) and nothing changes. All that's plugged in apart from the above is
a monitor and keyboard I've cleared the CMOS both by battery removal and
jumper, and changed the CMOS battery. Can't get into the BIOS at all
(AMIBIOS) because it won't ever go past "Checking NVRAM..". All the fans are
working.

Any ideas, apart from fried processor/motherboard?
Thanks

 

[JT]

Hi all,

I just got an old server from work, and thought I'd set it up at home. The
thing was working fine then (5 days ago). All that changed was that we took
out the hard drive. I tried booting it up at home, and now it won't get past
"Checking NVRAM.." - it always hangs here. The system is:

PII 266Mhz
PCChips M720II Mboard
Matrox MGA G100A/4/HP vid card
128Mb PC-100 ram in DIMM-1

It had 2 other ram sticks in it, I've tested all three (individually and
together) and nothing changes. All that's plugged in apart from the above is
a monitor and keyboard I've cleared the CMOS both by battery removal and
jumper, and changed the CMOS battery. Can't get into the BIOS at all
(AMIBIOS) because it won't ever go past "Checking NVRAM..". All the fans are
working.

Any ideas, apart from fried processor/motherboard?
Thanks

Sounds like it is still looking for the hard drive, the CMOS probably
didn't clear. The next thing it does after Checking NVRAM is quick test the
hard drives, so that is where it is hanging. The "press del" or other
message should show up well befor that. Make sure the power is unplugged
when trying to reset CMOS as the standby powere might be keeping the
settings. Also, remove the battery for several minutes.

JT