Interesting Problem

[CFP]

On my GF's brother's PC:

P4 3.2C
Asus P4P800SE
512 Samsung DDR400
Galaxy 6600GT
Antec TPII 350W

It has just frozen on post for no reason. For a while, it was experiencing troubles booting into windows and would hardlock for no reason.

Now it won't get past post - displays fine indicating everything is ok with GPU, and there are no beeps, but it gets stuck on:

"Detecting Primary IDE"

So, somethings probably wrong with the HDD.. but when I try to go into the bios to boot from CDROM instead (and to check what is up) it says "Entering setup..." and never enters setup!

Is the most likely explanation the HDD? I'm looking to troubleshoot before getting him to splash out on new hardware.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tropic]

If you think it's the HDD (and it looks like it might be), remove it. See if you have any POST problems then.

 

[CFP]

I was going to try that, but decided to see what other's might think.

But, let's say we hypothetically rule out the HDD, are there any other explanations for what might have gone wrong?

Could the motherboard have just gone kaput?

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

I have a feeling from the limited info offered, that the PSU took out the HDD.
Hook up a known good PSU to see if it will get past POST. The HDD maybe dead, so that
would mean a new HDD and a reinstall of the OS. If his PSU is out of warrenty, open it up
for inspection.


...Galvanized

 

[CFP]

The PSU is only a few months old, an Antec TPII 350 - they are reliable little things, the antecs.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
I have a feeling from the limited info offered, that the PSU took out the HDD.
Hook up a known good PSU to see if it will get past POST. The HDD maybe dead, so that
would mean a new HDD and a reinstall of the OS. If his PSU is out of warrenty, open it up
for inspection.


...Galvanized

have something against Antec PSU's huh? Well just FYI I'm on my 4th Antec, never had any trouble with any of them (other than having to upgrade due to increasing power needs).

OK here is what I'd do, if it freezes at detecting the HD, unplug the data cable from the HD. If it works, try reseating data cable. If not, try removing the data cable totally from the system. I've seen data cables go bad and do strange things to systems.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Yep I run 2-Zippy/Emacs & 1-FSP Group. Just bought an Enhance.

The OEM for Antec, CWT has been squeezed real had by them for profit margin.
They are not what they once were.


...Galvanized

 

[SparkyJJO]

OK I can see preferring something else, but just automatically saying that the PSU took out the HD is a bit extreme

 

[mechBgon]

CedricFP, if the hard drive happens to be a Western Digital with a regular ATA/100 interface, and if it's on a data cable without any other drives, then remove the jumper. That sets it for Single Master mode, which is different from regular Master.

(otherwise, go to the bottom of this page for links to HDD diagnostic software by the different HDD makers)