All you geniuses, surely somebody knows? (come on)

[davidkay]

I posted a question last week and got like 1 reply. I see others in the forum get so many replies. Maybe its the way I word my posts who knows

Anyway, it seems like my old PC is crapped, so i'm building a new one soon. However, it would be nice to give the other one to my sister. So i desperately want to get it fixed.

Okay basically there's a number of different problems that keep coming up. Here's a list. there's no order of what happened but different things happen.

1) The machine wont boot. The HD LED stays on and no beep and nothing displayed on screen.

2) The machine doesn't boot. A long beep and a short pause. Still nothing displayed on screen.

3) The PC displays a picture. Then displays : BIOS ROM Checksum error.

4) The PC displays a picture. Then displays: Unable to Load BIOS, Please insert diskette

5) The PC Boots fine. Goes into Windows. Anything from 20 Mins to 1 hour the PC resets. Step 1 happens usually after this!

6) The PC Boots fine. Goes into Windows. 20min - 1hour Blue screen displays: Windows has detected an error: Step 2 happens after this.

7) The PC Boots fine. Goes into Windows. 20min - 1 hour Locks up (temps are very cool).

My PC is listed in below specs. Any ideas. I've replaced the PSU, reseated the CPU, removed unrequired boot devices. Same thing still happens. It seems in 2) mentioned above, it can't detect the RAM cards.

So come on whats wrong?

 

[davidkay]

Just wanted to say. If i keep trying straight after i've turned it off step 1 usually always happens. However, if i leave the power off come back 10+ mins later its fine and usually dont do 1).

Do you think it could possible be my RAM at all? I've tried both the 256Mb and 128mb in bank 1 only, yet it still does it

 

[LiLithTecH]

Replace the CMOS Battery.

The multiple BIOS errors and instability would indicate that is the problem.
Trying clearing it first, if it doesn't help, replace it.

 

[davidkay]

I'll give it a shot, but will a dead CMOS battery cause the PC to crash, reboot or go to a blue screen?

Any other comments would be very much appreciated!

 

[LiLithTecH]

The problem is it is not dead, just probably not enough power left to keep the Bios Alive consistently.

Try clearing the CMOS first. Remember to remove the power from the PC when clearing.
Remove Power. Remove Battery. Wait 5 minutes. Replace Battery. Plug in Power.

 

[davidkay]

I'll try it tomorrow. If it is the battery, why would the PC reset or go to windows blue screens if the cmos battery is low? Surely the PC doesn't use the battery when powered up?

 

[Superwormy]

The CMOS battery always has juice running through it. If the battery dies... everything shuts down with it

 

[davidkay]

Just got a new CMOS battery. I had to reset the settings etc. I noticed today if i set the DRAM to HostCLK+PCICLK to get the 133MHz (which i been using for 1.5 years) it saves it but wont boot properly. I've set it to Hostclock and it seems to be running okay at the moment. I await it to die any second!

 

[Peacekeeper100]

Your bios chip could have burned up too. I've never actually heard of this happening, but it's possible if the battery thing doesn't fix the problem.

 

[JustinLerner]

In addition to a BIOS problem, it could be the electronics that the BIOS interfaces to the rest of the board with.

If any of these circuits are faulty, they will affect the BIOS read. If this is the cause, you have a bad motherboard.

Since the errors occur occasionally, your PC has a latent failure or partial electronic failure. When certain conditions are met, it will work. When others occur it fails. If it's not the BIOS or PS, then your problem is most likely the motherboard. However, change out each PCI device (like video, modem, sound) and check with known good boards if you have any available.

--

Also, when testing, disable and disconnect every extra peripheral like your SCSI CD ROM.

--
On the battery. The battery keeps the CMOS date and time active and all the BIOS settings. If the battery dies, the PC can still boot, but will stop and beep usually with an F1 required to boot or some other key to go into BIOS. If the BIOS is set, the settings will be retained as long as you keep your PC on. A battery should not keep a PC from booting, but only powers the date/time clock and retains BIOS settings.

 

[davidkay]

Well replacing the CMOS battery didn't work either. The PC died on me yesterday again and i've not been able to turn it back on. Well it does now seem like its the mobo. Anyway out of interest would the PC reboot if the ram was faulty or would it just lockup?

I'm getting my Pentium 4 system built over the weekend. Just waiting for certain parts

 

[LiLithTecH]

If the ram was bad, it would not POST.
But, if the ram is faulty, the System will POST, but will corrupt data
and basically be unstable.

 

[scorpio5780]

Looking at the funky behaviour of your machine I would say that the motherboard is causing the problem.

 

[jackolantern74]

in my experience it would be the RAM you got. I have had that problem a couple times.
try to take all the sticks out, but one. and with that one, just try every slot you have.
you could have one bad stick, or a bad slot, who knows. maybe this will tell you

 

[JustinLerner]

-- Sorry, misread an earlier post.

I'm still inclined to think that either your BIOS or motherboard has problems, but maybe RAM or the PS are involved in the problem.

 

[davidkay]

Well i changed the ram and PSU and neither did anything. So its obviously the mobo...oh well.

The goodnews is that I'm getting my Pentium 4 2.53GHz with 512mb DDR RAM tomorrow and a nice ASUS mobo. Can't wait

 

[Arcanedeath]

I'd have to agree that the most likely cause of this issue is a faulty motherboard, most likely something to do w/ the Bios, perhaps attempting to update the bios may correct your problem if you haven't tried this yet it might be worth a shot. Hope this helps...