Busted system...HELP please!

[cmacord]

I moved earlier this week, and when I put my old home-built desktop system, it failed to come up! I can hear the system power up and the boot drive start to whir, but all that is on the monitor is the bouncing RGB test pattern, with a message informing me that the monitor is working fine and I should check the cable and the PC.

I tested the system with another known-good monitor, and then with another known-good video card...in both cases, there was no change. I let it set overnight (superstition coupled with fatigue and frustration), and when I powered it up this morning, it started to boot normally, i.e., it was able to access the monitor for display. It showed the BIOS banner, the RAM POST count, and then the auto-detect sequence (it successfully found and identified both HDDs and the CDROM drive). However, after completeing the auto-detect sequence, it froze, and that was it...no more boot, no more information displayed, nada. Subsequent efforts to boot resulted in the failure to acquire the monitor described above...

I have opened the system and re-seated all the cards...I have even tried booting with all cards removed except the video card. I have also checked every connection I know to check, pressed them down to make sure they were fully seated (including the BIOS chip), even hit the innards with compressed air (not that it helps, but it always makes me feel better....heh). I have run out of things to try at this point. And the worst part about it is that even if I give up and buy a new system, I won't be able to get my stuff off the boot drive and the backup drive unless I remove them from the old system and hook them into the new one.

I need some help here, folks...does anyone have any idea what might be wrong, and what I might do to fix it? Or, if not, anything else I might try to find out what is wrong?

Thanks in advance,


Charlie Acord

 

[Rmac57]

Well have two "suggestions" try to make sure that mobo is not grounding some where. I had this prob had to remove mobo from case and would boot fine. Other suggestion is bad power supply but sound more like grounding prob. Very particular sometimes. Make sure all screws R tight but not too tight... U know! let me know if this helps. worst case senerio is bad Mobo. not too bad. And what U mean u CAN"T retrive from boot disk???

 

[TKS]

could be a Power supply too.

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<b>It is always brave to say what everyone thinks. </b> <i>Georges Duhamel</i>

TKS

 

[Pearlallica]

This message is coming a tad LATE but for those that encounter the same problem, I offer my testimony.

I had the same grounding issue Rmac57 spoke about. On one occasion, taking eveyrthing apart, and then putting it back together again proved to be the solution. Another instance, I simply took the RAM out and placed them in a different configuration. It's almost as if during a boot-up crash, something was written to cache which, for cautionary purposes, disallowed the BIOS to boot. I dunno, just a theory from an inexperienced newbie like myself.

 

[Kronos]

Try resetting the CMOS. Goodluck!

I want to die like my Grandfather...in my sleep...not screaming in terror like his passengers.