Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

PC Boot problem

Status
Not open for further replies.
alexwood

alexwood

Technical User
Feb 16, 2001
31
GB
The PC in question is an old AMD 1000, served me well for a good few years now. Boot up the PC, and after 5 seconds, just as it gets to the 'Detecting IDE Drives' bit, the display shuts off and you get the 'Entering Power Saver Mode' message on the blank screen.

I've put a different graphics card in, tried booting off a CD, tried booting with both IDE cables unplugged from the motherboard, tried going straight into the BIOS from boot, but every single time I get the same problem.

The only thing I can think of is a faulty motherboard, but why does it let me have 5 secs of graphics and nowt else? When booting normally, it would display the Windows splash screen, so if there WAS a graphics problem, I could understand it dying there. But when going into the BIOS, or booting of a CD ROM, it will not show that screen, so therefore shouldn't cause any graphics problems.

This has been bugging me for the past week - anyone got any ideas?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
The heatsink is fully in place, the fan spins up as soon as the PC boots.
I thought of the CPU overheating, but it does it after the PC has been powered down for a couple of days - I can't see the CPU overheating after just 5 secs of use from cold.

As for the power supply, check it how - there's still power to the board, the PC looks like it is still booting (it doesn't, as I can't see it on the network) but after the display goes, the power light is still on, HDD light is still going.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ok. I took the box apart last night, cleaned everything (it WAS a bit dusty in there), reseated everything. Had a good long look at the capacitators, couldn't spot anything untoward with them.

I'm now at a complete loss. I think I've reached the stage where a purchase on Ebay is necessary.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
For a blind guess I would say your power supply is bad. A few things to try: Strip system down to minimum requirements to run and see if there is any difference.

Also you may want to try removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes then replacing and booting up again. The fact that you can't get into BIOS is not good.

The fact that it is an older system should be weighed heavily in deciding how much time to put into attempting to fix it.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm not entirely sure, but downloading a bios flash from the manufacturer's site might work. It's worth a shot. It could be that the BIOS was corrupted.

Hope this helps

Good Luck!

Chris
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Presumably you can get into the BIOS... If yes, does it still trip out after 5 seconds if you're static in there?

Might be worth resetting the BIOS back to defaults.

"As for the power supply, check it how...?". By substitution with a know good one.

ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Can't get into the BIOS, it trips after 5 secs regardless. Also, wit the type of BIOS on this m/board, you boot off a Win98 floppy, then at the command prompt run the BIOS update. As I can't boot off anything, I can't run the update.

Don't think I can lay my hands on a spare PSU, so I'll just have to try stripping the system down to the bare bones, no floppy, no CD-ROM, take out the NIC, modem, wireless NIC & s/card and boot on that.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
When you power on the PC, does the HS-Fan work correctly (Thermal Protection may kick in if the Sensor or Fan is damaged or wrongly plugged in on the mobo), is it correctly sitting on the CPU (180 degrees off and you get what you describe)...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, that was weird! Just out of curiousity, I powered the PC up and lo and behold - it booted perfectly. As though nothing had ever been wrong.
Updated my AV/spyware & Windows, usual round of re-boots and everything is still fine.

Absolutely bizarre. I can't find a reason for it.

Thanks to all that posted trying to help.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sounds like this might be a case where using Ben's sig might be appropriate!
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
Click to expand...

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I think that it is as BadFrog had mentioned... the PSU is going out on ya...

@BadFrog - LOL, about the sig...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

HebieBug
  • Locked
  • Question
Boot From USB drive getting Error message "bootable device was not found" 1
Replies
2
Views
353
kjv1611
kjv1611
kenthephoneman
  • Locked
  • Question
New PC Restart problems
Replies
2
Views
118
technome
technome
pmonett
  • Locked
  • Question
PC does not start after upgrade 1
Replies
18
Views
280
Andrzejek
Andrzejek
BxWill
  • Locked
  • Question
Windows not loading - PC Angel Recovery Displayed
Replies
4
Views
106
Stephen_Hawk
Stephen_Hawk
Kjonnnn
  • Locked
  • Question
PC won't start after purchasing new memory. 1
Replies
2
Views
154
Kjonnnn
Kjonnnn

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top