L
Lou Grinzo
I've been building and fixing PC's for nearly 20 years, and this one has
me stumped. Let's see if anyone here can help nudge me toward a solution.
Original config (config0 from here on): Cheapo case, 450 watt Anitec PSU,
ASUS P4P800, 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of PC3200 RAM, 2 IDE HDD, 1 IDE SONY
DVD R/RW+- drive, 1 IDE Panasonic CD ROM drive, 1 FDD, USB mouse (700-
series
Logitech wireless), PS2-attached IBM-brand keyboard, old Maxtor dual-head
board.
I built this system right after the P4P800 came out, and it ran perfectly
since
day one, until about a week ago.
I had been using it for a few hours when the system locked up solid--no
mouse cursor movement, nothing. Rebooted, and it ran fine. It did it a
couple more times over the next 2 or 3 days, same symptoms. I opened the
case, reseated the memory and all cables, and the problem disappeared for
about 4 days. Then one morning it wouldn't boot--no BIOS screen, no
speaker
beeps, no signal to the monitor at all. The PSU and CPU fans ran, and the
drives had power, but it refused to boot. Pressing RESET does nothing. I
can tell it's not booting, as there's no HDD noise after the initial power-
on head reset. (Hereafter, I'll call this state "no boot".)
After numerous attempts I did manage to get it to boot into the BIOS set
up screen about 4 different times, but each time it locked up solid after
just a few seconds.
I reseated everything I could find, "no boot".
I pulled the memory completely, "no boot".
I replaced the motherboard (put in a brand new P4P800 SE) and the power
supply (put in a brand new 350W Anitec), "no boot".
I tried a different graphics board, in both config0 and the new MOBO
and PSU, "no boot".
I went back to config0, "no boot".
I replaced the CPU with an identical 3.0 GHz P4, "no boot".
I stripped the entire system down--pulled all disk drives, the USB hub,
everything except MOBO, CPU, memory, keyboard, mouse, and graphics board.
I tried booting about 50 times, and got "no boot" in all but about 3 or 4
trials, and in those it locked up after about 10 to 30 seconds.
During this whole time I used an old Athlon system with the same monitor
I've been using on the now-broken system since day one. Tonight, after
trying the stripped-down step mentioned above, I gave up, plugged in the
Athlon, and it exhibited the "no boot" symptom(!!!) for about 5 boot tries,
then started working, and I'm using it now.
As I see it:
It's not the motherboard, the CPU, the BIOS, the power supply, the disk
drives, the memory, or the graphics board. These were all replaced with
known-good units (or simply removed) without any change in the symptoms.
I thought it might be some kind of weird grounding issue, but the problem
is so unpredictable that I don't see a pattern that would suggest that's
it.
The Athlon system not working is almost wierd beyond belief, and the only
way I could see it being connected to the failure of config0 (and all the
ensuing test configs) is if there were some sort of low-voltage situation.
My wife and I did move into a new house in 2004, about 6 months ago, but
the house is only three years old and I run all systems on a combination
UPS and surge protector. I even tried running config0 without the UPS,
with no success.
Aside from bad Bermuda Triangle and haunted house jokes, I would REALLY
appreciate any help. I'm about one step away from burying this system
in my back yard during the next full moon.
Thanks in advance,
Lou
me stumped. Let's see if anyone here can help nudge me toward a solution.
Original config (config0 from here on): Cheapo case, 450 watt Anitec PSU,
ASUS P4P800, 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of PC3200 RAM, 2 IDE HDD, 1 IDE SONY
DVD R/RW+- drive, 1 IDE Panasonic CD ROM drive, 1 FDD, USB mouse (700-
series
Logitech wireless), PS2-attached IBM-brand keyboard, old Maxtor dual-head
board.
I built this system right after the P4P800 came out, and it ran perfectly
since
day one, until about a week ago.
I had been using it for a few hours when the system locked up solid--no
mouse cursor movement, nothing. Rebooted, and it ran fine. It did it a
couple more times over the next 2 or 3 days, same symptoms. I opened the
case, reseated the memory and all cables, and the problem disappeared for
about 4 days. Then one morning it wouldn't boot--no BIOS screen, no
speaker
beeps, no signal to the monitor at all. The PSU and CPU fans ran, and the
drives had power, but it refused to boot. Pressing RESET does nothing. I
can tell it's not booting, as there's no HDD noise after the initial power-
on head reset. (Hereafter, I'll call this state "no boot".)
After numerous attempts I did manage to get it to boot into the BIOS set
up screen about 4 different times, but each time it locked up solid after
just a few seconds.
I reseated everything I could find, "no boot".
I pulled the memory completely, "no boot".
I replaced the motherboard (put in a brand new P4P800 SE) and the power
supply (put in a brand new 350W Anitec), "no boot".
I tried a different graphics board, in both config0 and the new MOBO
and PSU, "no boot".
I went back to config0, "no boot".
I replaced the CPU with an identical 3.0 GHz P4, "no boot".
I stripped the entire system down--pulled all disk drives, the USB hub,
everything except MOBO, CPU, memory, keyboard, mouse, and graphics board.
I tried booting about 50 times, and got "no boot" in all but about 3 or 4
trials, and in those it locked up after about 10 to 30 seconds.
During this whole time I used an old Athlon system with the same monitor
I've been using on the now-broken system since day one. Tonight, after
trying the stripped-down step mentioned above, I gave up, plugged in the
Athlon, and it exhibited the "no boot" symptom(!!!) for about 5 boot tries,
then started working, and I'm using it now.
As I see it:
It's not the motherboard, the CPU, the BIOS, the power supply, the disk
drives, the memory, or the graphics board. These were all replaced with
known-good units (or simply removed) without any change in the symptoms.
I thought it might be some kind of weird grounding issue, but the problem
is so unpredictable that I don't see a pattern that would suggest that's
it.
The Athlon system not working is almost wierd beyond belief, and the only
way I could see it being connected to the failure of config0 (and all the
ensuing test configs) is if there were some sort of low-voltage situation.
My wife and I did move into a new house in 2004, about 6 months ago, but
the house is only three years old and I run all systems on a combination
UPS and surge protector. I even tried running config0 without the UPS,
with no success.
Aside from bad Bermuda Triangle and haunted house jokes, I would REALLY
appreciate any help. I'm about one step away from burying this system
in my back yard during the next full moon.
Thanks in advance,
Lou