Re: Any ideas - PC stopped POSTing/booting

On Feb 1, 9:32 am, milleron <nos...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:19:38 -0800 (PST), pauld <pauld...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



Hello
I have been having some trouble with a system I built back in May of
2007 that I wonder if anyone could help me with.

First, the system specs:
- ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core
Processor
BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express
x16 SLI Supported Video Card
- (2x)G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
(a total of 4GB)
- RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer
Case 500W Power Supply
- erroneous periphs including 2 x 500GB Seagate SATAII drives running
as a RAID

This system has been working fine from the day I built it until three
weeks or so ago when I turned it on and when I went to use it after
waiting the usual boot time I found it had not booted. The fans and
LEDs were lit, and the speaker on the board is kind of muffled so I
wouldn't have noticed any beeps or lack of beeps. I did a hard reset
and got a "failed disk - need to reset BIIOS to defaults" warning
which I promptly ignored and allowed the system to boot as usual,
which it did.

Since then it has progressed to where cold booting could take upwards
of a dozen cycles of turning on the power switch/holding down for four
seconds to kill it - repeat before I get a beep and a normal POST and
boot. I will repeat that the fans/drives spin up and the case/mobo
LEDs light. There is no beep and no video. Once it finally does boot
the system runs *perfectly*. A hot restart has also been fine.

Anyway, I have been thinking it was the kind of crappy power supply
that came with the case so last night I went and bought a new Antec
500 watt Earthwatts PS to see if that would solve it. When I installed
the new PS and turned on the system I got the same symptoms that I
have been having except now I cannot get it to POST or boot at all.
The fans spin, etc, but no joy. I have stripped the board down to
nothing and taken it out of the case, etc, but this puppy is not doing
anything. But the lights and the fan(s) still spin...

I do not think that it's the PS (I know it's possible, but how likely
to have another different manufacturer/different purchase location
power supply crap out?). So, since I really need to get back to work
ASAP, I have overnighted the identical mobo and CPU from NewEgg and I
am thinking I can return whichever one is NOT the culprit ( not to
scam them - simply to return the item that I do not need)

My guess is that it's the board, but it looks fine.

Everything is exactly as I have described. I am the only one who uses
or touches this PC and it has not been opened or even moved since the
day I built it back in May

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on this? Also, if it is the
board, it is still under warranty. Does anyone have experience or tips
on dealing with Asus? I love their products, and I won't begrudge them
one bad experience out of the many good ones I have had with their
products, but fair is fair.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or help with this perplexing
situation!
Please reply to this group and not my spam-trap hotmail email.

Paul

I had similar, not identical, problems with a very similar board, an
A8N-SLI Premium. I'd get through a POST and launch of Windows XP, but
the system would then mostly freeze (still had a mouse). On a warm
reboot, it was obvious that the HD (a Raptor) with the boot partition
on it was not being detected because POST would complete and end up
with a "no-system-disk" message. Powering down the computer at the
mains and restarting would almost invariably get the drive recognized
again. Once the drive was recognized, the computer ran "*perfectly*,"
just like yours. After a lot of troubleshooting, swapping SATA cables
and SATA ports, checking RAM, it turned out that the problem was a
failing drive. Replacing the HD with a clone resolved the problem.
Your "failed-disk" message makes me wonder if the BIOS is not
detecting a drive at all. My suggestion would therefore be to
download the free drive diagnostic software from your manufacturer in
order to make sure that your primary HD is not faulty. Also, if you
haven't tried switching drive cables, do that. Since you have a RAID
setup (almost always a bad idea on standalone computers, IMHO, but
beside the point here), I realize that it's very difficult to swap the
connections to different SATA connectors on the mobo, but if you can
do that, that also might be worth a try.

Ron

The drives are irrelevant since I cannot get anything even with just
the board and CPU. I have just received a new board and CPU from
NewEgg, I put the old CPU in the new board and got nothing (when I
say nothing, I mean fans and lights are there, but no beeps). I put
the new CPU in the old board - nothing. I put the new CPU in the new
board with a new power supply - nothing. At this point I am beyond
perplexed since the last try has completely NEW components. I am going
to try different outlets since that's all that's left. There are other
PCs in the room where this mystery one is that work fine, but I am
running out of ideas.

I have been extremely careful throughout and I find it hard to imagine
that between two identical boards and identical CPUs I cannot get even
error beeps. I want to be clear-these boards are no longer in a case.
They are not connected to drives. I have tried them with CPU + Video
card + Keyboard + RAM and every combination in between. I just have no
idea outside of some fluke coincidence or underpowered outlet thing
that this board does not like - which I doubt.

Paul
.

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