M
~misfit~
God I'm sick of helping 'friends' with their PCs.
I need help with this latest one.
A while ago I upgraded an old Kaiyo machine for a (financially challenged)
friend from an AMD 686 100Mhz to a P166MMX, bumped the RAM up from 8MB to
64MB and slapped in a 256Kb COAST module and added a PCI NIC so his missus
could use this old machine, running 98SE, and use the net, email etc. using
MS ICS from his (PIII) machine. It's an Ocktek mobo. All I got out of it was
I sold him a 15" monitor in good condition for $50.
They were pleased as punch with it for months. Then today I get a call, "The
monitor isn't working". They turn it on, the LEDs come on, the HDD clicks a
few times and...... nothing.
I told him the monitor is a good one and to unplug the monitor from the PC
and, lo and behold, "No signal input" appears on the monitor. Being the
sucker I am I agree to him bringing the box around and so I can have a look
at it.
First thing I do is hook it up to a monitor etc. here and it's just as he
described. No monitor action, no BIOS beeps, just a bit of HDD seek noise.
OK, try a different PCI video card. No change. Try another. Still the same.
Try a different PCI slot, nada. Try an ISA video card (why the hell do I
still have one of those?) still nothing.
HDD light is flashing for a second or two when you first push the power
button, as is the CD-ROM light. CPU fan is spinning fine but nothing is
happening.
So I grab a spare Socket 7 AT mobo out of the bits box, an MSI, a good
board. TX chip-set, 512Kb on-board cache, a lot better than the original.
Change everything over and... Just the same, exactly the same.
So I swapped out the CPU for another P166MMX, no change. I pull the NIC and
soundcard, no change. Unplug the IDE and floppy cables.... you guessed it,
no change. No BIOS on screen, no beeps, nothing.
So I tried the RAM modules seperately (2 X 32MB) still nothing.
As the drives were all spinning and there was power on the 12 and 5 volt
connectors on the molex plugs and I couldn't be bothered completely swapping
PSUs (It was late and he'd been here two hours, talking incessantly) I used
a different PSU to power the mobo, thinking maybe the 3.3v was shot. Turned
them both on at the same time with the second PSU earthed to the chassis,
Still no change. (I no longer have a multi-meter, gave it to a friend in
more affluent times who does a lot more electronics work than me when his
packed up, intending to replace it but... never did and now can't afford
one)
Previous to this, in the last week or so, he tells me sometimes it wouldn't
boot but hitting reset a time or two fixed it. Until tonight.
I told him to leave it with me. I'm gonna bench-test the original mobo
tomorrow, seems a good place to start.
Please, my learned friends, do any of you have the slightest idea what may
be going on with this POS? ;-)
I need help with this latest one.
A while ago I upgraded an old Kaiyo machine for a (financially challenged)
friend from an AMD 686 100Mhz to a P166MMX, bumped the RAM up from 8MB to
64MB and slapped in a 256Kb COAST module and added a PCI NIC so his missus
could use this old machine, running 98SE, and use the net, email etc. using
MS ICS from his (PIII) machine. It's an Ocktek mobo. All I got out of it was
I sold him a 15" monitor in good condition for $50.
They were pleased as punch with it for months. Then today I get a call, "The
monitor isn't working". They turn it on, the LEDs come on, the HDD clicks a
few times and...... nothing.
I told him the monitor is a good one and to unplug the monitor from the PC
and, lo and behold, "No signal input" appears on the monitor. Being the
sucker I am I agree to him bringing the box around and so I can have a look
at it.
First thing I do is hook it up to a monitor etc. here and it's just as he
described. No monitor action, no BIOS beeps, just a bit of HDD seek noise.
OK, try a different PCI video card. No change. Try another. Still the same.
Try a different PCI slot, nada. Try an ISA video card (why the hell do I
still have one of those?) still nothing.
HDD light is flashing for a second or two when you first push the power
button, as is the CD-ROM light. CPU fan is spinning fine but nothing is
happening.
So I grab a spare Socket 7 AT mobo out of the bits box, an MSI, a good
board. TX chip-set, 512Kb on-board cache, a lot better than the original.
Change everything over and... Just the same, exactly the same.
So I swapped out the CPU for another P166MMX, no change. I pull the NIC and
soundcard, no change. Unplug the IDE and floppy cables.... you guessed it,
no change. No BIOS on screen, no beeps, nothing.
So I tried the RAM modules seperately (2 X 32MB) still nothing.
As the drives were all spinning and there was power on the 12 and 5 volt
connectors on the molex plugs and I couldn't be bothered completely swapping
PSUs (It was late and he'd been here two hours, talking incessantly) I used
a different PSU to power the mobo, thinking maybe the 3.3v was shot. Turned
them both on at the same time with the second PSU earthed to the chassis,
Still no change. (I no longer have a multi-meter, gave it to a friend in
more affluent times who does a lot more electronics work than me when his
packed up, intending to replace it but... never did and now can't afford
one)
Previous to this, in the last week or so, he tells me sometimes it wouldn't
boot but hitting reset a time or two fixed it. Until tonight.
I told him to leave it with me. I'm gonna bench-test the original mobo
tomorrow, seems a good place to start.
Please, my learned friends, do any of you have the slightest idea what may
be going on with this POS? ;-)