no POST

[S.Boardman]

My second PC is giving me problems. It is one that was given to me, and
since I have no POST (blank screen) I can't tell you a great deal. Normally
it runs 24/7 running SETI on WinXP.

It is a MSI KM2M Combo (MS6738) motherboard. This morning I found it
beeping, one long beep over and over. I went to the MSI site and found it
was an Award BIOS, so I've checked on the web, and sifting through all the
conflicting advice, it seems to indicate a video or memory error. A check
of the Award web site suggests a memory error.

The video card is an Asus but I don't know which. I have swapped it out and
that is not the problem. There is one stick of unbranded, unlabelled memory,
I have moved it to the other slot, and swapped it for another stick in the
same board, but this did not help.I dropped the FSB/CAS on another PC to
test it, and that doesn't seem to be the problem either - it works fine. All
the fans are going round. It has a XP 2100+ CPU and a 300W Enlight PSU.
Does this mean I have to get another motherboard? The Award site said that a
bad CPU gets no beeps.

 

[kony]

My second PC is giving me problems. It is one that was given to me, and
since I have no POST (blank screen) I can't tell you a great deal. Normally
it runs 24/7 running SETI on WinXP.

It is a MSI KM2M Combo (MS6738) motherboard.

Ironically enough, I happen to have in front of me it's predecessor,
MSI 6390-L. It's also a KM266 mATX board but less colorful and
without the PC133 slots, no USB 2 (8233 southbridge instead of 8235)
but it still has the game port.

This morning I found it
beeping, one long beep over and over. I went to the MSI site and found it
was an Award BIOS, so I've checked on the web, and sifting through all the
conflicting advice, it seems to indicate a video or memory error. A check
of the Award web site suggests a memory error.

Maybe, but was there anything unusual happening with that system, or
was it turned off then on when this happened, or was it left running
SETI then found crashed, or ???

I suppose it could be the memory, but generally that' not likely,
unless a capacitor failed and the DDR regulation went bad and the
memory was overvolted. Could be a lot of things but constant stress
like Seti would make me suspect failed capacitors first, on the
motherboard OR in the power supply.

The video card is an Asus but I don't know which. I have swapped it out and
that is not the problem. There is one stick of unbranded, unlabelled memory,
I have moved it to the other slot, and swapped it for another stick in the
same board, but this did not help.I dropped the FSB/CAS on another PC to
test it, and that doesn't seem to be the problem either - it works fine. All
the fans are going round. It has a XP 2100+ CPU and a 300W Enlight PSU.
Does this mean I have to get another motherboard? The Award site said that a
bad CPU gets no beeps.

If the CPU fan is still turning, the CPU is "probably" fine. Enlight
300W power supplies weren't nearly as good as their 340W and higher
versions, you might unplug the power supply and inspect it. In fact I
have a 340W Enlight that I"ve had to repair TWICE because it had Luxon
capacitors that vented. The truely ironic part, and you won't even
believe this, is that the very same 340W Enlight power supply, is
right now powering that MSI 6390 motherboard about 2 feet from me.

Anyway, I "think" I have a picture of at least one variation of the
Enlight 300W, at some point in time though I don't know if it's like
yours. I've added arrows to point out capacitors that are more likely
to fail:
http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/enlight_300_caps.jpg

You might also try clearing the CMOS, or first try reducing the FSB
speed to 100MHz. On my similar board that jumper is confusingly
placed right next to the battery, and the clear CMOS jumper is in the
bottom right-hand side of the board, but yours may vary, it was just
odd that they put the FSB jumper where the clear CMOS jumper "usually"
is on a board.

You might also inspect the capacitors around the motherboard. I would
suspect the (Teapo?) capacitors scattered about the board before the
(Rubycons?) just to the left of the big orange mosfet 'sink.


Dave

 

[S.Boardman]

Ironically enough, I happen to have in front of me it's predecessor,
MSI 6390-L. It's also a KM266 mATX board but less colorful and
without the PC133 slots, no USB 2 (8233 southbridge instead of 8235)
but it still has the game port.



Maybe, but was there anything unusual happening with that system, or
was it turned off then on when this happened, or was it left running
SETI then found crashed, or ???

It was left in Windows XP running just SETI (Command line version),
VirusScan, and ZoneAlarm. Went into the room, it was beeping. Turned the
monitor on, the screen was blank. Turned it off. Turned it on again, the
beeping started, blank screen, no post or anything.

I suppose it could be the memory, but generally that' not likely,
unless a capacitor failed and the DDR regulation went bad and the
memory was overvolted. Could be a lot of things but constant stress
like Seti would make me suspect failed capacitors first, on the
motherboard OR in the power supply.

What exactly am I looking for?

If the CPU fan is still turning, the CPU is "probably" fine. Enlight
300W power supplies weren't nearly as good as their 340W and higher
versions, you might unplug the power supply and inspect it. In fact I
have a 340W Enlight that I"ve had to repair TWICE because it had Luxon
capacitors that vented. The truely ironic part, and you won't even
believe this, is that the very same 340W Enlight power supply, is
right now powering that MSI 6390 motherboard about 2 feet from me.

There is very little plugged into this PC... it has a DVD-ROM, and uses
onboard LAN and sound.

Anyway, I "think" I have a picture of at least one variation of the
Enlight 300W, at some point in time though I don't know if it's like
yours. I've added arrows to point out capacitors that are more likely
to fail:
http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/enlight_300_caps.jpg

Would it be the PSU if everything powers up?

You might also try clearing the CMOS, or first try reducing the FSB
speed to 100MHz. On my similar board that jumper is confusingly
placed right next to the battery, and the clear CMOS jumper is in the
bottom right-hand side of the board, but yours may vary, it was just
odd that they put the FSB jumper where the clear CMOS jumper "usually"
is on a board.

I can't change the speed if I can't get anything on screen. I'll see if I
can get hold of the mauals to locate the 'clear cmos' jumper from MSI's web
site.

You might also inspect the capacitors around the motherboard. I would
suspect the (Teapo?) capacitors scattered about the board before the
(Rubycons?) just to the left of the big orange mosfet 'sink.

I did have a quick look, and couldn't see anything untoward. I'll have a
better look tomorrow, and might even undo the PSU

 

[kony]

It was left in Windows XP running just SETI (Command line version),
VirusScan, and ZoneAlarm. Went into the room, it was beeping. Turned the
monitor on, the screen was blank. Turned it off. Turned it on again, the
beeping started, blank screen, no post or anything.


What exactly am I looking for?

For the failed capacitors, a spot where there USED to be one, or with
a vented top, bulging or reside on the top or bottom. Certainly
"some" of them are fine still, compare them and see which look a bit
off. Sometimes they fail and show no outward signs so it can be easy
or quite hard to diagnose.

There is very little plugged into this PC... it has a DVD-ROM, and uses
onboard LAN and sound.


Would it be the PSU if everything powers up?

It could be outputting power but not sufficient quality power to run
the system.

I can't change the speed if I can't get anything on screen. I'll see if I
can get hold of the mauals to locate the 'clear cmos' jumper from MSI's web
site.

If it has a jumper for FSB you can just change the jumper to downclock
to 100MHz. Clearing the CMOS "might" also revert to defaults that
include 100MHz FSB speed.

I did have a quick look, and couldn't see anything untoward. I'll have a
better look tomorrow, and might even undo the PSU

I'd suspect the power supply before the motherboard, but one of those
two.

All the Enlight power supplies I've seen recently had lower quality
sleeve bearing fans, you might check that it hasn't frozen up if you
hadn't already.


Dave

 

[S.Boardman]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 21:08:31 -0000, "S.Boardman" <[email protected]> snip!


I'd suspect the power supply before the motherboard, but one of those
two.

All the Enlight power supplies I've seen recently had lower quality
sleeve bearing fans, you might check that it hasn't frozen up if you
hadn't already.

I cleared the cmos, but that didn't do anything. So I plugged in the old
300W PSU from my other machine, and hey presto, it worked. I reset the CMOS
data, and I got to the point where Windows offers you normal/safemode/last
known good configuration. Initially I selected normal, but it just rebooted.
So I set the BIOS make to fail-safe defaults, and tried again. Then it just
hung on that screen with the options. On the next reboot, I selected last
known good configuration, and that hung. Next time I selected safe mode, and
I got a list of files running down the screen.
So, I booted from a floppy and ran Norton Disk Doctor, and repaired a couple
of files, nothing major, and tried again. Again all the above stuff
happened. I got the list of files down the screen in safe mode, this was the
last one:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition (1)\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\Mup.sys

Help. I don't know Win XP very well at all, certainly not enough to know
what's going on! Is it still a hardware thing that's making Windows a mess?

 

[kony]

I cleared the cmos, but that didn't do anything. So I plugged in the old
300W PSU from my other machine, and hey presto, it worked. I reset the CMOS
data, and I got to the point where Windows offers you normal/safemode/last
known good configuration. Initially I selected normal, but it just rebooted.
So I set the BIOS make to fail-safe defaults, and tried again. Then it just
hung on that screen with the options. On the next reboot, I selected last
known good configuration, and that hung. Next time I selected safe mode, and
I got a list of files running down the screen.
So, I booted from a floppy and ran Norton Disk Doctor, and repaired a couple
of files, nothing major, and tried again. Again all the above stuff
happened. I got the list of files down the screen in safe mode, this was the
last one:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition (1)\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\Mup.sys

Help. I don't know Win XP very well at all, certainly not enough to know
what's going on! Is it still a hardware thing that's making Windows a mess?

Sometimes a motherboard will take a lot of abuse from a failing power
supply... the power supply caps go, the ripple coming from it is bad,
and the motherboard caps have to bear the extra filtering, for as long
as they can. This suggests that it IS possible the motherboard is
less than fit but we can't assume so yet. With the power flaky all
sorts of memory or other errors might've occured to the Windows
installation, but it would be good to judge the fitness of the machine
before worrying about (that paritcular) windows installation.

See what the BIOS reports for voltages. If the 3V or 5V looks low, or
the 12V too high, you might remove the video card and use the onboard
video, as it would certainly use less power. At the moment I don't
recall (if you'd mentioned in previous posts?) what the state of the
"new" power supply is, if it's even adequate for the system.

What you might consider doing is creating a new partition or install
another drive temporarily to do a fresh windows install, see if that
works properly. If it does then build that install up to be
operational or do a repair install on the original.

During this process, if you had the system underclocked it might be
easier to distinguish between hardware and software, since a system
running OK underclocked, then having problems at proper clock speed,
is having a hardware error, not a windows or software error (assuming
no BIOS glitches, which we should assume since this was a working
system until recently).


Dave

 

[S.Boardman]

snip


See what the BIOS reports for voltages. If the 3V or 5V looks low, or
the 12V too high, you might remove the video card and use the onboard
video, as it would certainly use less power. At the moment I don't
recall (if you'd mentioned in previous posts?) what the state of the
"new" power supply is, if it's even adequate for the system.

Vcore 1.61
+3.3 3.31
+5 5.08 to 5.10
+12 11.91
-12 -12.11 to -12.19
-5 -5.09
VBAT 3.04
5VSB 4.99

The power supply was in my 'good' machine, but the 12V was too low if you
remember, and it kept rebooting, so I got a new one. I figured since there
was nothing actually wrong with it, I could stick it in the WinXP PC. Both
PSUs are 300W.
Inside the knackered one, there is some yellow stuff, it looks like glue.
It's on a capacitor, but also on some other bits as well. No capacitor
appears broken, missing or deformed. I don't know if the yellow stuff is
supposed to be there, it's the first PSU I've looked in. There's not much of
it.

What you might consider doing is creating a new partition or install
another drive temporarily to do a fresh windows install, see if that
works properly. If it does then build that install up to be
operational or do a repair install on the original.

:-(

During this process, if you had the system underclocked it might be
easier to distinguish between hardware and software, since a system
running OK underclocked, then having problems at proper clock speed,
is having a hardware error, not a windows or software error (assuming
no BIOS glitches, which we should assume since this was a working
system until recently).

Changing to 100 FSB doesn't help ATM

 

[kony]

Vcore 1.61
+3.3 3.31
+5 5.08 to 5.10
+12 11.91
-12 -12.11 to -12.19
-5 -5.09
VBAT 3.04
5VSB 4.99

Those voltages look fine. The minor variation seen above on the 12V
is reasonable from a motherboard monitor report, as they often do read
slightly low.

For some reason I was under the impression the CPU was a Palomino, but
with 1.6V core I suppose it's a T'Bred?

The power supply was in my 'good' machine, but the 12V was too low if you
remember, and it kept rebooting, so I got a new one. I figured since there
was nothing actually wrong with it, I could stick it in the WinXP PC. Both
PSUs are 300W.

Well, hopefully there's nothing wrong, that it was simply incapable of
the 12V load placed on it rather than a failure.

Inside the knackered one, there is some yellow stuff, it looks like glue.
It's on a capacitor, but also on some other bits as well. No capacitor
appears broken, missing or deformed. I don't know if the yellow stuff is
supposed to be there, it's the first PSU I've looked in. There's not much of
it.

Probably a silicone or epoxy cement, is supposed to be there. The
residue from a leaking capacitor is thin, dark, sort of like a sap or
scab-like residue. It would clearly be seen to be coming from either
the bottom of a capacitor or the top, aluminum exposed part would have
the indentations cracked open, venting.

:-(

Well at least it was just running SETI instead of your primary-use
system.

Changing to 100 FSB doesn't help ATM

So it consistently POSTs, stays working if you don't boot to windows,
like entering the BIOS, or if you were to boot to and run memtest86
for a long time, but when windows loads you then start seeing
problems? If so it sure seems like a clean windows install is the
next step, or a repair install.


Dave

 

[Trent©]

Help. I don't know Win XP very well at all, certainly not enough to know
what's going on! Is it still a hardware thing that's making Windows a mess?

Sounds like a software problem at this point...and could easily have
been caused by Norton.

Do a repair install.



Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season...

Trent

Proud member of the Roy Rogers fan club!