Troubleshooting: Loss of video signal after 3min.? (sorry, only active forum at 2am)

[StattlichPassat]

Hey guys,
I'm troubleshooting a system in the middle of the night because I have nothing better to do. It's an AMD Duron 700MB on an MSI K7T Turbo KT133A. The system will occasionally boot with the D-LEDs lit up and signal-on the video card. Lately, it's been losing a signal like the card just up and died. The rest of the system appears to function just fine, but without video, I can't say for sure. I left it even in BIOS, and the video failed after 3 minutes or so. The monitor goes into sleep mode (amber LED), the D-LEDs on the motherboard stay on, but upon a reboot, they don't come on! Drives, fans all function... but cards are unresponsive. I had a NIC plugged in at one point, and the LEDs on it failed to come on too. I have tried two different video cards, AGP and PCI, and no good. I leave the thing alone for a bit, unplug some stuff, replug in some stuff, and it will come back on again with video, but fail again.

I was having problems getting it to recognize drives last weekend, but now it's doing that ok. Now I just need to keep a video signal going! Can anyone offer some help to me at this hour? Pleeeease? I'll be up for another 2 hours probably. Thanks.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Just popped out the CMOS battery for a few minutes and unplugged, popped it back in, hooked up power, and away we go again! Booting into Windows98 now, Safe Mode... stays on for 3 minutes... POOF! There goes the video. System still running fine. This is on the 2nd video card- both seem to work, but the signal just keeps popping out. Is the motherboard bad? I'm only running the basics- no other cards or drives.

 

[Furor]

yes..it's probably bad..if you try a different power supply and it's not fixed..it's definitely the mobo..i've had similar problems and that was it.

 

[Buz2b]

A couple of things to check. First, the area around the video card slot; whether it is the AGP or PCI. "Feel" the MB around those slots when it fails. If it is decidedly warmer than the rest of the board, then you know the problem.
Next, take a good look in the BIOS in the Power Management section. You may have it set to "hibernate", although I would think that this would not happen until it boots. Worth a look anyway.
Next, and maybe last, what is the PS you are using?? Could it be underpowered? Other than that, have you tried a different monitor and/or connector/cable?? Long shot but coming here at this time of the night is a pretty long shot anyway.
Hey, wtf am I doing here anyway??!!

 

[StattlichPassat]

Thanks for responding guys! The PCI and AGP slots are pretty cool... nothing extraordinarily warm. Lemme power the thing down, pop out the CMOS battery and I'll check the Power Mgmt. area in the BIOS here in a few...

On the PSU, it's a generic 'Solar Power' 250w unit. Works great, don't really have any qualms with it on a rig like this (rebuilding this to get it working as a LAN system for the house for my 14 year old sister back home). It's got plenty of power to drive an old 8MB ATI Rage128 video card, hard drive, and CD-ROM. I think anyway... I've also got an Antec 250w that I've used in here briefly, but it didn't make a difference. Acted and powered just the same as the generic one. Maybe I'll swap it in real quick with the new adjustments I've made to see if anything else is up.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Just left everything off for a few and did another cold boot- video failed to signal this time.

 

[StattlichPassat]

Swapped in the Antec PSU- booted up with video signal! BIOS Power Mgmt. was set to 'Suspend --> Off', so I changed that to 'Always On'. Booted into Windows98... and the video failed in the middle of ScanDisk! Ok. Dead mobo?

 

[Buz2b]

Ok, you've tried different video cards; both agp and pci. You've tried (thank you) a better PS than the "Solar Power" one. You've reset the CMOS, checked the BIOS and generall stood on your head. Yep, sounds like the board unfortunately. The only other extreme long shot would be the keyboard. If you could try a different one just to eliminate that then you really have to go with it being a bad board. However, the KB is a long shot and probably not worth it if you don't have one handy. I'm thinking a key is getting stuck (sleep or hibernate) or making just the tiniest amount of contact to activate. Sorry I don't have any other ideas.