Hi all. I am new to the forum but have been an avid lurker for quite some time. I am desperately hoping someone might be able to clue me in on whether I am experiencing CPU or mainboard failure (or something entirely different).
The system is a Compaq that I (re)built some time ago & now plan on giving to my son (recently aquired an AlienWare monster rig ). I pretty much rebuilt it with Ebay bids and spare parts. It's nothing fancy in terms of CPU speed but it gets the job done as intended (until now). The only limiting factor in this rig is the mainboard's chipset (only supports 100MHz FSB & PC133 SDRAM) which in turn limits my selection of CPU and faster RAM....but I'm happy with it and am sure that he will be...if I can get it up and running again sometime soon.
The Rig: The Problem:
This problem began some time ago (well after the BIOS flash & all of the system upgrades) and involved intermittent boot failures but has now turn into a complete system failure.
When it began, if I turned the power off for more than 5 minutes or so, I could then attempt to turn the PC back on, it would power up but it would not even so much as POST into BIOS...no BIOS, no errors, no system beeps...nothing but a blank screen. I would then have to power off & then back on (sometimes 2 or 3 times) before it would actually POST and then boot into Windows.
However, after finally booting into Windows, it would run as well as it ever had. I had run multiple Burn-In stress tests (including Sandra) and the system passed them all with flying colors.
However, the problem grew worse over a period of a year. 2 or 3 failed boot retries turned into 8 or 9 retries which turned into 20 retries...which then turned into nothing at all. Now the system will not do anything except as listed below...
When this occurs, the tower's front LED comes on, the network card's LED comes on, all 3 fans spin up and run correctly, floppy & both optical drives spin up & scan for media, both HDDs spin up and are being read but only for about one second or so...hmmm. Also, the monitor's LED remains orange instead of green but does not give a "no video signal detected" as it would if the cable was disconnected from the graphics card.
What I Have Tried:
Seeing all of the knowledgable people who frequent this board, I'm hoping someone 'in the know' or someone who has experience with issues such as these can give me a hand here. Motherboard, CPU, or something else I may have overlooked?...that is the question.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheerz!
The system is a Compaq that I (re)built some time ago & now plan on giving to my son (recently aquired an AlienWare monster rig ). I pretty much rebuilt it with Ebay bids and spare parts. It's nothing fancy in terms of CPU speed but it gets the job done as intended (until now). The only limiting factor in this rig is the mainboard's chipset (only supports 100MHz FSB & PC133 SDRAM) which in turn limits my selection of CPU and faster RAM....but I'm happy with it and am sure that he will be...if I can get it up and running again sometime soon.
The Rig: The Problem:
This problem began some time ago (well after the BIOS flash & all of the system upgrades) and involved intermittent boot failures but has now turn into a complete system failure.
When it began, if I turned the power off for more than 5 minutes or so, I could then attempt to turn the PC back on, it would power up but it would not even so much as POST into BIOS...no BIOS, no errors, no system beeps...nothing but a blank screen. I would then have to power off & then back on (sometimes 2 or 3 times) before it would actually POST and then boot into Windows.
However, after finally booting into Windows, it would run as well as it ever had. I had run multiple Burn-In stress tests (including Sandra) and the system passed them all with flying colors.
However, the problem grew worse over a period of a year. 2 or 3 failed boot retries turned into 8 or 9 retries which turned into 20 retries...which then turned into nothing at all. Now the system will not do anything except as listed below...
When this occurs, the tower's front LED comes on, the network card's LED comes on, all 3 fans spin up and run correctly, floppy & both optical drives spin up & scan for media, both HDDs spin up and are being read but only for about one second or so...hmmm. Also, the monitor's LED remains orange instead of green but does not give a "no video signal detected" as it would if the cable was disconnected from the graphics card.
What I Have Tried:
- Opened case and cleaned dust while checking for busted caps...everything looks fine.
- Disconnected, inspected, and reseated ALL internal & external cables & power wires...nothing.
- Reseated all PCI & AGP cards including RAM, fan/heat sink, & CPU...nothing.
- Tested monitor on other PC...works fine.
- Swapped out the graphics cards with a known good one...nothing.
- Removed all RAM and replaced them with 1 known good PC133 SDRAM 512MB stick...nothing.
- Removed & visually inspected the CPU (die, pins, etc.)...looked fine.
- Removed master HDD put slave HDD in its place...nothing.
- Placed the master HDD in other PC...other PC boots & runs normally.
- Placed slave HDD in other PC...other PC reads the drive without problem.
- Disconnected all hardware except graphics card & master HDD...nothing.
- Disconnected all hardware (including HDDs) except graphics card...nothing.
- Swapped the power supply with a known good one...nothing
- Reset CMOS via mobo jumpers...nothing.
- Replaced CMOS battery...nothing.
Seeing all of the knowledgable people who frequent this board, I'm hoping someone 'in the know' or someone who has experience with issues such as these can give me a hand here. Motherboard, CPU, or something else I may have overlooked?...that is the question.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheerz!
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