Random shutoff leads to never turning back on

[Pakman117]

I recently installed FreeBSD on my 900Mhz, Slot A athlon comp with Abit-KA7 motherboard and Asus 6800 geforce 256. It booted up fine, so I proceeded to edit a file with vi. I tried to quit vi, but I couldn't figure out how to. I started hitting keys on the keyboard, and then the computer just shutoff. Now when I try to boot up, the monitor goes to the orange light, the usb mouse light never comes on, and the keyboard locks (like cap lock) do not enable/disable. Xfree never booted, so its impossible that I blew out my graphics card/monitor with incorrect settings. I know this problem seems really vague, but does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Oyeve]

Try booting up without the usb mouse connected. Ive seen a lot of funky sh!t happen when a USB mouse is connected.

 

[Pakman117]

I finally got it to turn back on after disassembling the whole thing and adding a second fan to the cpu fan header. I'm not sure which method (disassembling then reassembling, or adding another fan) fixed the problem, but I'm still not in the clear yet. Now whenever it boots, as soon as it gets past the BSD screen, it reboots. I tried installing mepis and debian, but once it starts booting from the cdrom, it will stop. Debian claims a kernel panic. I then tried downloading the ultimate boot disk, booting off of that, and erasing the drive. However, once I enter any selection (like erase drive), the CDROM will get as far as telling me that its "booting...", and then stop. I don't have a floppy drive installed, and doing so will be quite a pain. Anyone have any ideas as to how to fix this bizzar problem?

 

[Andyman53]

I'd try eliminating the problem by doing this:

1) Boot w/o any IDE devices (CDRom, Harddrive etc), see what it gives you
2) Take out all PCI Cards
3) Do a CMOS reset
4)Take out all usb devices.

Troubleshoot from there, if you did all of that and still are getting problems, then you need to look at the motherboard and such. Sounds like your CDROM drive is bugging out, might need another one.

 

[Pakman117]

Word Andyman. Followed your advice, and miraculously it turned on. Turns out the CDROM was flakey. Thanks guys.

 

[Zinn2b]

First I would do a cmos rest and than if possiable I would up my CPU v. It kinda sounds a little bit like your P/S is going south for the winter.Check all your voltages man I smell A bad P/S.

 

[Pakman117]

I will also do that. This system has parts not choosen by me, so they might all be flaken' 😉.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: Zinn2b
First I would do a cmos rest and than if possiable I would up my CPU v. It kinda sounds a little bit like your P/S is going south for the winter.Check all your voltages man I smell A bad P/S.

Yes, of course, people on here should take your advice. Why don't you tell these folks all about the "secret Microsoft process" that stops people browsing the Internet on an illegal copy of XP? Hmm?