HELP!! Computer won't POST

[Rockman2001]

I need some advice for a computer that crashed last night.

Last night my display went out while I was surfing the net. Nothing I tried restored the display, so I restarted the computer. Everything was fine, computer ran Scandisk since I didn't shut down properly and continued on until Windows came up. The display went out again and this time the keyboard locked up. When I pushed the restart button on the computer, the hd light flickered briefly and the cd drive flashed several times like it was being accessed, then nothing. Had to hold the power button in for about 4 secs to restart. Restarted the computer again and this time no POST. The cpu and case fans came on, but no beep or beeps, no hd start. I tried re-seating the video and the ram, but nothing is working. CPU temp (according to Motherboard Monitor) was 50 deg C.

My computer is about 1.5 years old. The system is as follows:

AMD T-bird 1.4
ECS K7S5A v. 1.0
256 mb ddr Crucial ram
Visiontek GForce 3 Ti200
generic sound card
Antec case with 330 watt ps

I have been having some trouble with the computer that I attributed to a bad BIOS battery.

Any thoughts? Is it time for a new mb?

Thanks

Tim

 

[LiLithTecH]

You can try CLEARING the CMOS.
Either remove the battery or use the jumper method.

Remember to unplug the POWER from the PC when clearing.

 

[Cogman]

Humm. Sounds like a cooling problem. Shut it down, wait for a few seconds, and then run it. If it runs fine for a while then crashes and wont start for a few seconds it probibly is a cooling problem. one other thing, that has given me greif before. Sometimes a vidio card will over heat because of poor cooling and your computer will literally freeze. I aimed my fan at the Video card heatsink and have not had a problem since. Also, depending on the cpu, sometimes 50C is just to much for it. Some can go clear up to 90C and be stable (crazy I know) and others cant go past 55C without crashing (mine cant go over 55C without stability problems)

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: Cogman
Humm. Sounds like a cooling problem. Shut it down, wait for a few seconds, and then run it. If it runs fine for a while then crashes and wont start for a few seconds it probibly is a cooling problem. one other thing, that has given me greif before. Sometimes a vidio card will over heat because of poor cooling and your computer will literally freeze. I aimed my fan at the Video card heatsink and have not had a problem since. Also, depending on the cpu, sometimes 50C is just to much for it. Some can go clear up to 90C and be stable (crazy I know) and others cant go past 55C without crashing (mine cant go over 55C without stability problems)

Probably cooling issue or power supply going out

 

[Joemonkey]

my guesses would be power supply, motherboard, or CPU due to the lack of beeps. any way you can replace these one at a time to see what happens?

 

[Rockman2001]

I reset the CMOS and the computer fired right up. Somehow during all this, multiple Windows files got corrupted, so I did a clean re-install of Windows and my motherboard drivers. Now my AGP video card is detected as a PCI video card. I checked the BIOS and it is set up for the AGP. My monitor is connected to the Ti200 and is working, just at very low resolution. The AGP drivers were installed, but the video card is not seen by the computer.

I am also having trouble re-connecting to the internet through Roadrunner, but I think that is just something I haven't set up right, so I will be contacting Roadrunner about that.

As far as cooling is concerned, the CPU temperature right before the crash was 50 deg C. I don't have a way to measure the temp of the video card, but I cleaned the computer with compressed air about a week or so before the crash, so I don't think that is it. All of the fans are working.

The system seems to be running ok now except for the AGP card (it is not even showing up in the system folder in the control panel) and my internet connection.

Any ideas regarding the video card?

Thanks

Tim

 

[Rockman2001]

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am running Windows 98SE.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Did you re-install the AGP SIS VXD driver (on the CD or from website)
before installing the Video Driver?

Windows will not see the card without it.

 

[Rockman2001]

Yes. The video card is working, it's just being identified as a pci device.

Thanks for the help.

Tim

 

[Rockman2001]

Hey, I got it to work! I started over from scratch and re-installed windows, the motherboard drivers and then the video driver. Same as I did the other night, but this time it worked.

Thanks to all for the help.

Tim

 

[TheJTrain]

I just encountered this problem. I used my PC last night with no problems, shut down normally, it was off all night and all day today, then when I tried to boot it up this evening, the following happens:

• DVD and CD-RW drive lights blink and I can hear the discs spinning up

• The HD LED lights up, and I can hear the HD accessing

• The fans spin up (not sure about the CPU fan, haven't opened the case yet)

• No POST beeps, no display at all

What are the possible causes? Bad CPU or RAM (all of a sudden?), corrupted BIOS that needs clearing, bad CPU fan (such that the MB won't power the CPU if it sees the CPU fan isn't turning)? I'll try clearing the CMOS - now that I think about it, I've had intermittent trouble with this system with it losing the BIOS settings on random occasions, and I have to go into the config utility and reset the time, HD detects, FSB speed, etc. It happens maybe every couple of weeks - it's really no big deal, so I usually just fix it and move on. Could that be an indication that the CMOS battery is flaky?

Jason