Troubleshooting Dad's system

[Jeff H]

Guys,

Looking for an opinion as to what you think might be going on w/ my dad's system. The other day it booted into the BIOS setup screen. I got him out of that and it went to the Windows page that usually shows up after a shutdown problem (the blue screen with the top and bottom darker blue horizontal sections).

After that it booted OK, but then today it doesn't do a thing. The power supply fan is working, but there is nothing happening during the boot cycle. I'm thinking CMOS battery. The board is an Asus P3V4X with a PIII-550 Slot 1. I'm going to guess the boad is five years old.

Any ideas are welcome, re troubleshooting this. I'm not going to get a chance to look at it until Christmas, and I want to go armed.

TIA,

Jeff

 

[TheRyuu]

It shouldn't be the CMOS battery. If that was bad then the only thing that would happen would be that it would boot with default settings each time.
Try loading defaults in bios or optimized defaults in bios to make sure that isn't the problem.

Also, saying "doesn't do a thing" isn't that helpful. WHAT is it NOT DOING. Is it not booting? or is it frezzing up in windows?

 

[Jeff H]

wizboy11, thanks for the reply. Not to be a smart as_, but it's doing any and everything, and nothing. At times it will boot fine, then it won't boot, or it will boot but hang on the Windows (XP) startup screen. Sometimes it will boot fine, then another time there will be no video.

So, there is no pattern as to what it's doing and not doing. And remember, I'm trying to troubleshoot this time over the phone. Yesterday it booted to the BIOS setup screen. After a shutdown and reboot it booted fine. This morning it booted to the two blue color Windows screen. Now tonight it won't show anything on the screen, nor will it show anything via the LED for disk activity.

Is it video, is it memory, is it hard drive? I don't know where to begin.

Jeff

 

[FlyingPenguin]

My first suspicion would be bad capacitors on the mobo. Look at the photos here to see what to look for:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195

Next suspect would be the PSU. You have a spare you can swap it out for? Do you have a digital multimeter? If not they're $20 at Radio Shack or Home Depot. Check the voltage across any red and black wires on the mobo PSU connector (while it's connected to the mobo - you can insert the probes into the back of the conenctor) to check the 5 volt rail, and any yellow and black wire for 12v. Voltages should be within 5%.

HDD is not at all likely since you say sometimes it shows nothing on the screen. Even a bad HDD would always POST.

Memory is possible. Run MEMTEST86+ for at least 12 hours. Be aware, however, that other things can make memory fail the test even if the memory is good (a bad PSU for instance).

Hope this helps...

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
My first suspicion would be bad capacitors on the mobo. Look at the photos here to see what to look for:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195

Next suspect would be the PSU. You have a spare you can swap it out for? Do you have a digital multimeter? If not they're $20 at Radio Shack or Home Depot. Check the voltage across any red and black wires on the mobo PSU connector (while it's connected to the mobo - you can insert the probes into the back of the conenctor) to check the 5 volt rail, and any yellow and black wire for 12v. Voltages should be within 5%.

HDD is not at all likely since you say sometimes it shows nothing on the screen. Even a bad HDD would always POST.

Memory is possible. Run MEMTEST86+ for at least 12 hours. Be aware, however, that other things can make memory fail the test even if the memory is good (a bad PSU for instance).

Hope this helps...

Do that ^ ,
and nicely put.

 

[Jeff H]

FlyingPenguin, I'll agree w/ you that it's likely either the PS or the mobo. I don't have a spare ps lieing around to swap out. I'll do the tests on the line voltages (DC).

I do have a spare P4 and mainboard here, I would need to get some memory for it.

Should be a fun exercize.

Jeff

 

[Jeff H]

FYI guys I narrowed the problem down to either the cpu (Slot1 550MHz P3) or the mobo (Asus P3V4X). PS checked out fine, as did the vid card and memory.

Ended up installing new vid card (since I had it and it was inexpensive), mobo, memory, and cpu. Did an XP repair install and the "new" system is running fine.

Jeff