Can't boot Win98 PC

[pantichd]

Hello,

I have an AMD Athlon 950 PC running win98 that has decided to stop booting up

It wouldn't boot from the hard drive so I thought maybe I had a bad hard drive, virus or something like that so I tried a boot disk.

It gets to the point where it displays this message and then nothing happens:
"Searching for Boot Record from Floppy . . OK"

Can anyone offer any suggestions for what I can try next?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Enkrypted]

What message are you getting when it tries to boot to the hard drive? Enkrypted
A+
Let others know how much help they are by marking the helpful posts.

 

[gargouille]

Unplug your hard drive cable and power connection and then try the boot floppy...if it goes, then your hard drive controller on the motherboard is bad.
If it doesn't, the motherboard may be bad.
Either way, I think you're having hardware failure.

 

[gargouille]

Of course the possibility exists that your hard drive is DEdoubleD.

 

[Su513]

Lets face it - we've all had great fun at moments like these. I'd suggest that you also consider that the I/O on the motherboard may have gone pop, before ordering yourself a new HDD. Testing the drive in another machine would be a good way of checking for this - then at least you know exactly what you're repairing )

Susie

 

[pantichd]

I get the exact same message when trying to boot to the hard drive.

 

[Su513]

I think whats being suggested is that you see if the machine will boot *without* the HDD.

If you're having the same message when you put the HDD into another machine, then the HDD is dead. In fact, you could probably just check to see whether the bios recognises it as a slave in another machine... if it does, 99% of me says that the mainboard in the original machine has died. The only way you'll know for sure without having spare parts, is to use a process of elimination.

Susie

 

[pantichd]

Well, it is definitely the motherboard.

So now I need to buy another motherboard but I'm having trouble figuring out what to buy.

The old (actually only 1 yr old) motherboard uses PC-133 memory which I would like to reuse. I would also like to reuse the processor and cooling fan.

But when I look on pricewatch.com it seems like all the motherboards only support DDR memory.

Can anyone help me determine what kind of motherboard I can buy so that I can reuse my existing memory and CPU?

What info can I provide that would help you give me suggestions?

Thanks for all your replies so far and any others to come!

 

[Mulga]

I agree that it is probably the motherboard, however before you rush out and buy a new one there are other things that can cause this sort of problem, specifically other faulty hardware such as CDROM drive and expansion cards. Remove everything except RAM, CPU, video card and floppy drive then try to boot from a known good floppy. If it still does not work you can be pretty sure it is indeed the motherboard All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[gargouille]

I make no bones about favoring MSI motherboards...and here's the best entry, IMHO, for the money and matching your AMD CPU and PC 133 RAM....K7T Turbo2...and the link:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/....asp?model=K7T_Turbo_2&search_text=pc 133 ram

My only concern would be what brand of RAM you have...as these boards seem to prefer QUALITY RAM.

newegg.com has the board (w/free delivery) for $72

 

[Stealer]

Hi,

I have that MB and have had no problem at all with it. Great features!

Stealer

 

[Tom11]

I'd like to put my 2-cents-worth in, if you don't mind. I hate to have this thread sound like an ad for MSI, but I have to agree with the others who mentioned them, they're good boards. If it is indeed the motherboard, and I agree with Mulga that one more check won't hurt, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. I have also used SOYO and Shuttle motherboards. I built the machine I'm using now based on an MSI board and an AMD Thunderbird (w/DDR), and I recently had one built for my daughter using an MSI board and the Athlon 1700+ (w/DDR). They both work fine. When I get in the mood to build another machine, I'll go back to MSI.

 

[pantichd]

Thanks all for your help. I REALLY appreciate it.

 

[davidelnormal]

Before spending money, I suggest you try replacing the IDE Ribbon cable, or, if it is a cable with 3 sockets and you are using the cenyre one toconnect to the Hard drive, use the end one instead, or if you are using the end one, use the centre one.

 

[pantichd]

Well, I ran out of things to try so I bought the MSI K7T Turbo2 motherboard.

I took the old cpu and fan off the old motherboard, cleaned them off real good using rubbing alcohol, put some silver heatsink compound on the fan and cpu and installed them on the new motherboard.

After hooking up everything else I anxiously turned the pc on only to find that ... the cpu cooling fan wasn't turning. Read the directions again...yes, I had connected everything where it should go. Tried again, still nothing.

Aaaargh! Now what. Do I go out and buy another cooling fan? I don't want to but I have no idea what else to try.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[Stealer]

You say the cooling fan is not spinning. How about the other fans? Does the cd rom have power? Does the keyboard flash when you power up? Need more info...

Stealer

 

[pantichd]

Power seems to be ok to other components. Keyboard works (I was able to press Del key to bring up setup). CD power light comes on.

The boot up process recognizes the cpu (it displays a message stating what kind of processor I have) and the RAM.

I tried hooking connecting to the system fan power connection with same result.

 

[Stealer]

I would try another fan. If you have a store like Best Buy near you, you can always take the fan back for a refund if you end up npt needing it. But at this point I would try another fan.

Just a thought. This fan plugs into the main board right?
Have you tried plugging it in the other way around?


Stealer

 

[gargouille]

Anyone else see something fishy here?
I'd be very surprised if an AMD 950 CPU would survive without a heatsink fan working...booting to the BIOS...if it's not running I wouldn't run any more without making sure that fan is working...obvious reasons.

Now, pantichd, how did we suddenly jump to having discovered it was a bad motherboard?(that detail seems to have been left out?

Granted, there were quite a few good fixit tips...but what led you to make the assumption?
On the surface, of course, this is classic underpower case...

 

[Su513]

I'd have to agree totally... this definately sounds to me like a low capacity power supply struggling.