Question Dead Frankenstien desktop.

[bassguy59]

I have an old windows 98 era PC that I frankensteined together from several free deceased PCs about 4 years ago. Today I was using it and it froze up solid. Couldn't open Task manager, ended up having to hold the power button to shut her down. Upon reboot I have a power light and a non blinking hard drive activity light, running fans and a spinning DVD player. There is absolutely no activity on the monitor and no beep codes at all. I'm guessing the bios may be fried? What else can I check? Could a dead cmos battery cause this no restart behavior? (sorry, I don't have the MoBo details with me.)

Thanks in advance.
Bassguy

 

[Lutfij]

You could start by breadboarding the system. Work with one stick of ram and the try removing the CMOS battery(while the system is powered down and the wall socket switched off). Replace the battery after 30 minutes.

You may want to unplug the power for the optical drive and the fans and see if your system's functionality/display is restored.

You're going to need a spare PSU to rule out if the current unit croaked.

 

[bassguy59]

Thanks for your response Lutfi. I tried all the normal diagnostic things yesterday, made no difference. I turned the old gal on this morning and she came on and ran fine all day. At this point I'm assuming I've got an age/temperature related mobo crack/cold soldier joint problem. This old computer is a Pentium 4 in an non-airconditioned shop environment and it will sometimes run hot during the peak of summer. I guess I'm lucky it's lasted this long.