anyone there? it won't boot...

[phoeniks]

So I upgraded my system fine, then sold the old mobo & processor, ram & case to a pal.

When I build his new system, which involved (for reasons I won't go into) moving the board out of the case then back in again, suddenly the system won't boot. It is only the light on the speakers (which take their power from the keyboard socket) that confirms that there is power. There's no post, no fans etc. It just sits there.


I took all the usual anti-stat precautions, I have triple-checked the fiddly little connectors (power sw for example!). I had no need to change any jumpers from its last known working state. I have reseated the ram, changed it's sockets, stripped the whole thing back to basics (no cards, no drives)

In desperation, I shorted the cmos jumper, then forgot to replace it before trying to power-up (not reccomended). To my astonishment, I got a post, single beep, then it naturally went beserk looking for drives & things it couldn't find, then kindof screamed ( a continuous tick, a little like a full keyboard buffer) before freezing.

Powererd off, reset the jumper (back to "keep settings"), powered on and once again it sits there as dead as the proverbial... I don't think it's fried, cos I can repeat this trick with the jumper and get a result. During the boot, it checks the ram & reports ok, it identifies the processor ok...

It must be something obvious that's wrong, but I'm stumped. Can anyone suggest anything to try? (Is anyone here?)

[Cirga]

Lots of people here. I am sure we will get lots of responses in a bit of time.. If you were able to get it to post and give you a single beep that is good.. but if you have to short the CMOS jumper to get that to happen thats not a good sign.

What motherboard and processor and ram are you running .. models if possible.. so we can check what you have and make sure ther eis no conflict thre first off.

We will do our best t help

[phoeniks]

Thanks for the reply (and re-assurance). AS you can see I'm a noob here, so wasn't sure about an empty forum

No, it doesn't look too good, does it?

Specs: MS-6159 with Celeron 533 and 64Mb Pc100 RAM

The board has graphics & sound built in, have tried with & without separate graphics card, both on-board & PCI graphics respond with the dodgy jumper setting, but not otherwise

[phoeniks]

More info - the RAM is the stick that I used happily with that board & processor for 18 months prior to my upgrade (so no conflicts, it all worked happily together once, and in that case too)

I have tested the RAM in another box, and it seems ok, doesn't prevent a post at least.

I wonder whether it is to do with moving the board out of the case? I'm currently denying awful possibilities like static killed it I and have to dig into my pockets to repay my mate, I'm hoping the community here will solve it

<insert *fingers crossed* icon here>

[RipperRoo]

maybee the keyboard beep is the obvious? stuck key maybe?

with the jumper off you get post, can you get into the bios?

here's a link to the support manual download page for that board, it may be of some help


Link

hope this helps

[phoeniks]

Hi RipperRoo, good to hear from you

A stuck key (or even an utterly dead keyboard) wouldn't stop a post would it? Wouldn't I get something like "keyboard error, press F1 to continue" [funniest error message ever, methinks]

I only get the post with the cmos jumper in the "clear cmos" position, although I haven't tried removing it altogether (will do that tomorrow) and in that position I can't get into the bios, no, there is no responce to the keyboard at all. (I can try another keyboard tomorrow though - tonight I'm dedicated to this beautiful bottle of merlot)

You are thinking on the right lines though, I suspect, and have restarted my thinking processes (was brooding in despair for two weeks & have hidden the offending box out-of-sight) so thanks for that