Need suggestions on troubleshooting a pc that will not boot.

[B__P]

I have a store bought PC that I've upgraded extensively.
I put in several new hard drives and a new vid card.
Everything was fine for a while.
Then I moved and the damn thing stopped working.
Well, kind of......
It turns on, reads the model of the video card and the vid card's mem
the screen goes blank and it hangs there.
Being only a partial Nim, I CONSIDERED the possibility that something
came lose.
I pushed all connections together tightly, where they went into the
drive, where they met the mother board, I took the mem out and put it
back in. I pushed and jiggled the vid card.
Nothing seemed messed up.

Rebooted, same problem.
Tired more stuff - actually exhausted my small Nim knowledge base with
no luck.
I pulled out all the added drives(?WTH? worth a try.)
Same problem.

Incidental info:
This computer was a work in progress and as such the side is off so I
can get to stuff and add stuff when needed.
That being said, anything could have happened to it after the move
from being pissed on by a goat, invaded by a small daemon or even
struck by lightning.

As I lie here typing this, I can see the ghostly blank screen just
staring at me.

All I can thing left to try is to remove the Vid Card and see if it
boots.
If I've missed something and someone can suggest a different thought
process or other things to try, please let me know.

Bonnie

 

[Mike Easter]

I have a store bought PC that I've upgraded extensively.
I put in several new hard drives and a new vid card.

You have left out a lot of things that would be helpful for troubleshooting.

The new vid card suggests to me that prior to the vid card, that the
mobo had an integrated working video which might be used for
troubleshooting.

You also didn't say the mobo or the storebought/OEM name/modelno of the
original equipment.

Everything was fine for a while.
Then I moved and the damn thing stopped working.

That sequence description lacks detail that might have been useful.

Well, kind of......
It turns on, reads the model of the video card and the vid card's mem
the screen goes blank and it hangs there.

Does that mean to say that during the BIOS POST of the assessment of the
vid card that the bios 'crashes' -- if so, that certainly suggests that
something might be wrong in the vid cards ram.

Being only a partial Nim,

I'm not familiar with the term 'Nim'. The suggested meanings need
disambiguation for this context.

http://snipr.com/vios6 Chat, Usenet, and Text Message
Acronyms and Abbreviations

 

[Andy]

I have a store bought PC that I've upgraded extensively.
I put in several new hard drives and a new vid card.
Everything was fine for a while.
Then I moved and the damn thing stopped working.
Well, kind of......
It turns on, reads the model of the video card and the vid card's mem
the screen goes blank and it hangs there.
Being only a partial Nim, I CONSIDERED the possibility that something
came lose.
I pushed all connections together tightly, where they went into the
drive, where they met the mother board, I took the mem out and put it
back in. I pushed and jiggled the vid card.
Nothing seemed messed up.

Rebooted, same problem.
Tired more stuff - actually exhausted my small Nim knowledge base with
no luck.
I pulled out all the added drives(?WTH? worth a try.)
Same problem.

Incidental info:
This computer was a work in progress and as such the side is off so I
can get to stuff and add stuff when needed.
That being said, anything could have happened to it after the move
from being pissed on by a goat, invaded by a small daemon or even
struck by lightning.

As I lie here typing this, I can see the ghostly blank screen just
staring at me.

All I can thing left to try is to remove the Vid Card and see if it
boots.
If I've missed something and someone can suggest a different thought
process or other things to try, please let me know.

Bonnie

Hi Bonnie,

If your PC is over 3 years old, there's a chance that the CMOS battery has
gone flat. It's the silver, round, coin-like battery you should be able to
see on your motherboard. You can buy a replacement at Maplins for £2.99 and
the most popular type is CR2032 but it's better to actually take the old one
out first to check the model number.

Andy

 

[Nil]

If your PC is over 3 years old, there's a chance that the CMOS
battery has gone flat. It's the silver, round, coin-like battery
you should be able to see on your motherboard. You can buy a
replacement at Maplins for £2.99 and the most popular type is
CR2032 but it's better to actually take the old one out first to
check the model number.

The battery holds the BIOS configuration from session to session. Even
if it was dead, she should still be able to enter setup and choose some
reasonable settings that would allow the computer to boot up. The
settings might be lost when the computer was powered down. Also, the
battery should last for much longer than three years (but, of course
"should" doesn't mean "does". I've had computer last for decades
without needing a new battery.

I have a feeling her problem has to do with the power supply.

 

[Flasherly]

All I can thing left to try is to remove the Vid Card and see if it
boots.

Yep. Then the PS. Then the MB.

Store bought says junk to me. Not that I'm really that down on a $30
MB, provided that's all I'm paying and not some store to mark it up
300%. Some of those $30 MBs may be half decent if the research &
reviews are good. I'd factor them all out, though, if I wasn't
comfortable how well a MB is situated for replacement parts -- namely
options I'd have for CPU and memory. Power supplies are simple --
simply don't buy junk namebrands. So, what's left in that "store
bought" case that can screw up, and you know they couldn't have cut
"cost corners" on. . .I really doubt if your memory or CPU failed.

Heh...I knew this local store, long time ago, where the MB brands they
were selling -- cache memory for augmenting the CPU (believe that MBs
had that then) -- what they were selling was a MB with solid pieces of
plastic molded and glued or socketed in to look like cache memory.
Like setting up a business as if they were going into bank robbing
with a squirt gun, I guess.

 

[noi ance]

I have a store bought PC that I've upgraded extensively. I put in
several new hard drives and a new vid card. Everything was fine for a
while.
Then I moved and the damn thing stopped working. Well, kind of......
It turns on, reads the model of the video card and the vid card's mem
the screen goes blank and it hangs there. Being only a partial Nim, I
CONSIDERED the possibility that something came lose.
I pushed all connections together tightly, where they went into the
drive, where they met the mother board, I took the mem out and put it
back in. I pushed and jiggled the vid card. Nothing seemed messed up.

Rebooted, same problem.
Tired more stuff - actually exhausted my small Nim knowledge base with
no luck.
I pulled out all the added drives(?WTH? worth a try.) Same problem.

Incidental info:
This computer was a work in progress and as such the side is off so I
can get to stuff and add stuff when needed. That being said, anything
could have happened to it after the move from being pissed on by a goat,
invaded by a small daemon or even struck by lightning.

As I lie here typing this, I can see the ghostly blank screen just
staring at me.

All I can thing left to try is to remove the Vid Card and see if it
boots.
If I've missed something and someone can suggest a different thought
process or other things to try, please let me know.

Bonnie

Sounds like the PC can't boot from the hard drives.

#1 if you have onboard video, removing your add-on vga card. Boot to the
bios (Del, F12, etc) and enable the onboard video. You've reduced your
power supply requirements requirement.

Can the PC boot a floppy or CD disk instead of from the HDs?

Blank screen can be a few things, psu, loose cables, slightly out of
alignment PCI or memory, bad memory, bad video card (hd activity no
screen), bad monitor.

You could go back to the basic machine (remove your hw updates) to see if
the PC now boots. If it does add the hw updates until it boots
consistently or fails.

 

[B__P]

I apologize if I left info out. Not sure what would be needed to help
the problem.

You have left out a lot of things that would be helpful for troubleshooting.

The new vid card suggests to me that prior to the vid card, that the
mobo had an integrated working video which might be used for
troubleshooting.

You also didn't say the mobo or the storebought/OEM name/modelno of the
original equipment.

It started life as an emachine.
I'm sure that alone would be a nice start for a new thread flaming me,
but while it worked the computer suited my needs to a T.
It wasn't a $3500 gaming rig, but I didn't intend for it to be, nor
was that the niche I was filling with the system.

The additional Drives I added were all large Western Digital running
from an add in SATA card. These were all removed while trying to
trouble shoot.

It is an eMachine T3522 with integrated Video.
I have an Nvidia 7900 GS in there now,
and 4 gigs of ram.

While rebooting to see what Video Card I had in the system,
the system actually passed the first part of the log on where it had
been hanging and is now showing the emachine logo a big white e and
the selection for BIOS and BOOT menus.
For a while inside the machine there was a sound like when a key is
stuck on the KB, a really soft repeating click, no a loud ping from
the speaker.

Well, here it is, more information.
If someone can help me learn form this and fix the thing, I'd be
grateful.

Does that mean to say that during the BIOS POST of the assessment of the
vid card that the bios 'crashes' -- if so, that certainly suggests that
something might be wrong in the vid cards ram.

Not sure if CRASH is the proper term or not.
The screen shows the vid card name, 256 Megs Ram and even though the
systems is running, the fan whirls and lights are on - no one is home.
Nothing happens, it just hangs.

I'm not familiar with the term 'Nim'. The suggested meanings need
disambiguation for this context.

Nim= Nimrod. I'm only a partial nim so about equal to a half wit.

But, the answer always seems to be easier once someone else shows you.

I feel this is something I should be able to fix but cannot and I do
not want to let it beat me.
I'll try to reboot w/o the vid card, then I guess I'll try swapping
out components unless you can provide some help.

 

[B__P]

Andy,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But if it was the battery, wouldn't it still boot but just lose the
cmos info and you'd have to put it in manually each time?
Not arguing the point, just wondering.
Anything is worth trying at this point.
Bonnie

 

[B__P]

Nil,

Why the PS?
I have a couple I could try to swap out and see, but what makes you
think that is the thing?

Bonnie

 

[B__P]

Bob,

I kind of get that feeling to - sounds reasonable but I don't think
the system was dropped, but WTF knows.
I'm going to pull the vid card see what I get then try a diff hard
drive.
Will let you guys know what I get.
Thanks

 

[Mike Easter]

I'm going to pull the vid card see what I get then

Good idea.

You have added: vid card with 256 ram, a SATA card, 'some' drives, and
maybe something else.

Maybe your PS is overloaded on one of its rails.

The original equipment came with a celeron D 333, 512ddr2 (able to up to
4G in 4 slots), and it sounds like the vid, lan, sound, and modem may
have been integrated in the mobo, with a PCI-E 16 slot, and a 100G IDE hdd.

I'm pretty sure the eMachine people didn't put much 'extra' PS on board.

There aren't any more docs at eMachines than these specs
http://snipr.com/vmbxh

Before I just start swapping parts, I like to try to do enough
troubleshooting to point to some particular part or another. In this
case, my troubleshooting would start with less parts.

 

[B__P]

My computer has been down for about 1 year.
I had to move suddenly and didn't have much time to try and fix it (
no free time at all really.)
But after Mulling it over for less then 4 days and only about 10 min
hands on work, I've solved the problem.

As I said in one of my posts, when you know the answer, the problem
is easy.
I would like to think Bob , Mike and everyone else that helped me with
this issue, thanks a lot. You have my heart-felt & sincere gratitude.

Thanks again for help in solving my boot problem.

Bonnie


Oh, wait. The problem. You may want to know what it was.
After speaking with Bob last time, I felt sure the problem was in the
HD. I pulled the vid card out and still no boot so it mean time to
put in a different drive or to test the HD somewhere else.
I didn't have another system set up currently where I could test the
HD, and I was trying to think what HD I could put into the nonworking
system to see if that would fix it. On a whim, I unplugged the ribbon
cable from the HD and used the TERMINAL connector on the same ribbon
cable and BOOM, the damn thing booted.

My understanding, and THIS MAY BE IN ERR, is that it doesn't matter
which connector you use on the ribbon cable when you are using two
drive, the jumpers ( on the HD's with jumpers ) determine which is
slave and which is master.
So apparently either
1) That is not true

or

2) the ribbon was bad.



(However in my case, there was only 1 drive on the Ribbon cable and it
was connected in the middle which didn't work, but started working
when attached to the END. ****Should I have known to attach a single
drive to the end terminus of the ribbon cable ******????


If 1 is true, then someone had to physically unplug the drive and the
plug the wrong connector back into it.

(Can someone help me out with this briefly...master / slave and what
order they should be on the ribbon cable?? Please?)

Either way, the system is working and I could have only done it with
the help of this group. I always try to recall Occam's Razor but
invariable, when I hear hoofs, I look for unicorns. Damn.

Bonnie.

 

[Andy]

Andy,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But if it was the battery, wouldn't it still boot but just lose the
cmos info and you'd have to put it in manually each time?
Not arguing the point, just wondering.
Anything is worth trying at this point.
Bonnie

Hi Bonnie,

I only suggested the battery because a couple of days ago my PC wouldn't
boot either. I'd power up and switch on and everything spun to life but the
monitor stayed blank (no signal) and the HDD light would stay solid for 5
seconds then go out.

My fix was to replace the CMOS battery.

My PC was home-built 4 years ago.


Andy

 

[Mike Easter]

My understanding, and THIS MAY BE IN ERR, is that it doesn't matter
which connector you use on the ribbon cable when you are using two
drive, the jumpers ( on the HD's with jumpers ) determine which is
slave and which is master.
So apparently either
1) That is not true

or

2) the ribbon was bad.

Originally your eMachine came with a 100 meg IDE, but later you added a
SATA card and WD SATA drive (I think).

I suspect that somewhere in that physical hdd reconfiguring, you chose
to connect the IDE drive to the 'wrong part' of the IDE ribbon cable.

The jumpers on a IDE hdd can be configured for master, slave, or cable
select (simplifying). How you set the IDE drive's jumpers depends on
how you are going to connect it to the cable.

 

[Mike Easter]

a 100 meg IDE,

s/meg/G/

a 100 G IDE

 

[Paul]

My computer has been down for about 1 year.
I had to move suddenly and didn't have much time to try and fix it (
no free time at all really.)
But after Mulling it over for less then 4 days and only about 10 min
hands on work, I've solved the problem.

As I said in one of my posts, when you know the answer, the problem
is easy.
I would like to think Bob , Mike and everyone else that helped me with
this issue, thanks a lot. You have my heart-felt & sincere gratitude.

Thanks again for help in solving my boot problem.

Bonnie


Oh, wait. The problem. You may want to know what it was.
After speaking with Bob last time, I felt sure the problem was in the
HD. I pulled the vid card out and still no boot so it mean time to
put in a different drive or to test the HD somewhere else.
I didn't have another system set up currently where I could test the
HD, and I was trying to think what HD I could put into the nonworking
system to see if that would fix it. On a whim, I unplugged the ribbon
cable from the HD and used the TERMINAL connector on the same ribbon
cable and BOOM, the damn thing booted.

My understanding, and THIS MAY BE IN ERR, is that it doesn't matter
which connector you use on the ribbon cable when you are using two
drive, the jumpers ( on the HD's with jumpers ) determine which is
slave and which is master.
So apparently either
1) That is not true

or

2) the ribbon was bad.



(However in my case, there was only 1 drive on the Ribbon cable and it
was connected in the middle which didn't work, but started working
when attached to the END. ****Should I have known to attach a single
drive to the end terminus of the ribbon cable ******????


If 1 is true, then someone had to physically unplug the drive and the
plug the wrong connector back into it.

(Can someone help me out with this briefly...master / slave and what
order they should be on the ribbon cable?? Please?)

Either way, the system is working and I could have only done it with
the help of this group. I always try to recall Occam's Razor but
invariable, when I hear hoofs, I look for unicorns. Damn.

Bonnie.

You've discovered the rule

When using *one* IDE hard drive, it goes on the end of the cable.
"Fill from the end first".

MB -----------X-----X
|
Single_HDD

The middle connector is only used if two hard drives are
present on the cable.

MB -----------X-----X
| |
HDD HDD

The reason for this is the properties of signal transmission.

Also, the ribbon cable with 80 wires on it, gives better
signal quality, than the cable with 40 wires. The connectors
on the cable are the same in both cases. The difference is, the
80 wire cable, makes every second wire on the cable, a ground
signal. That improves the signal quality on the cable, which
is one of the reasons for introducing an 80 wire cable.

(The wire is finer looking, on the 80 wire cable. Otherwise,
the cables look identical, and you can easily confuse one
for the other, if you aren't looking for the wire gauge.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ATA_cables.jpg

HTH,
Paul