PC boot problem 4

[Crustyoldbloke]

Last week I moved my son's PC, taking care not to drop it or bash it. When it was in it's new place, it failed to boot. The boot sequence goes as far as "verifying pool data" and stops.

I have tried to boot it from a floppy "startup disk" and from a Win98 CD, by changing the bios sequence, to no avail. I have also changed the hard drive to a known "good one", again, no good.

Am I looking at a motherboard problem? or is there something else I should be doing diagnostically to get to the root of the problem?

Any help, greatly appreciated.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hi Carl

My mongrel PC is part Pentium (CPU), MOBO as previously stated GA-586S2, BIOS is AWARD MODULAR 1994-1998.

Tried F8, no good, and F1 - same. What is extremely humourous, is when you boot without a keyboard, the PC gives the message "keyboard error or no keyboard present, press F1 to continue", which F1 would that be then?

Just spoken to a PC builder friend. He says if you can't boot from a floppy, then you're wasting your time, I'll put a MOBO in the post (mail).

Thanx

Phil

 

[GrandpaCarl]

HI PHIL,

Hope you MOBO supplier is close so you can try the new one soon.

One other possibility to look at is to be sure the heatsink on the CPU is dolidly in place and the fan is spinning.

Also found more information on DMI at:

http://www.networkcomputing.com/netdesign/desk1.html

Note that there are multimple pages. I read through the whole thing, but did not see anything that would help you in the immediate situation. Just more info to keep my brain from getting rusty.

GrandpaCarl

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Thanx Carl

CPU heatsink is fine. The BIOS declares that it is 51C and the fan is whirring round. The heatsink fan is about 4 months old as the old one started making a noise, so I changed it before it blew.

By the way, being English and having a sense of humour is one and the same thing. It's almost 9.00 PM here, so I'll be signing off to quench my thirst with a pint or two of the amber nectar. I don't know where you are in the States, but I guess I've been awake around 6 hours longer than you.

Good Night
Phil

 

[DorothyDix]

WOW!!!! 44posts and still going strong...we should be able to crack the record(whatever that is).

Couple of other possibilities came to mind.
1. Have you tried changing the RAM sticks?

2. Did you,at any stage,reinstall graphic drivers?
If you're using Nvidia drivers,you need to completely remove old ones before reinstalling new ones.

3. The board may be set to PCI video mode(in bios) instead of AGP (assuming you have an AGP card) You will need an old PCI card to get around this.

Just another few suggestions...

let us know how it goes

PAUL

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Morning Paul. We start again. It's 0930 hrs here, and having just read your latest, I'm looking at the problem again, and yes, I think we may be on for a record.

I haven't changed the RAM stick, although I did jjjjjjjiggle it. Drivers have not changed for quite a while. BIOS does not have option of PCI/AGP switching.

Defaults are now saved in BIOS, as they have always been.

My son will never get his hands on my PC.

Phil

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Whilst I been waiting for you guys to wake up, I've had a thought (first one of the day and probably the only one), currently the PC beeps on POST, so the CPU and the MOBO are communicating.

I have 3 drives, all of which do not read. It's unlikely that all 3 drives failed at the same time and I don't believe in coincidence, or fairies at the bottm of my garden. So I think we can eliminate them.

BIOS reads normal, so let's take that out of the equation also.

I'm now left with RAM as a possibility. Is there any way of testing SDRAM other than sticking it into my machine? I'd rather have one problem than two.

Thoughts please.

Phil (just had lunch).

 

[DBSSP]

There are some shops that will test modules for free. Other than that, you would have to try it in another machine to see if the stick is bad..if it's not than I would say that the memory controller decided to blow out. DMI pool I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is Direct Memory Interrupt. If the controller or ram stick is bad in someway then the pool can't be verified. Make sure the pc you throw the stick in can accept that kind of module, if you decide to test it yourself that is.

(Just had breakfast myself! 08:45) Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[wolluf]

How many sticks of RAM in machine? (if more than one, just try one at a time). If just one - can always try one good stick out of another machine.

 

[DBSSP]

I suggest testing the modules on another machine, if you test a good module in the questionable machine and there is something wrong with the mem slots or otherwise, you could learn a lesson the hardway when your "good" stick becomes a "fried" stick...Whereas if a mem module is fried it just won't read properly in the good machine with out causing any damage. Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Just tried the 64Mb RAM stick in my machine and it works!

The best laid plans of mice and men etc.

I think we're back to MOBO, or at least a part of it.

Went onto website earlier for DMI problems and followed their suggestions to disable CPU/Internal cache, boot etc., but the result was just the same.

Any ideas?

Phil 15:00

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hi Guys

I think I may have found the problem.

I've been interrogating the suspect, one Thomas Sandell, aged 14, my son. I had the big light and even bigger stick, just for effect. He told me exactly how he had problems plugging the mouse in. He said it was kinda loose. On examination of the mouse plug, pins 3&4 were sharing the same position, i.e. 3 was bent alongside 4, although I doubt it would have actually plugged into the same hole on the socket of the MOBO. Just plugged my mouse in and nothing new to report.

Any specialists on mice? other than a large tabby.

Is it possible that a function on the MOBO has been compromised?

Phil 15:45

 

[DBSSP]

I gotta say, it definitely looks like the a memory controller failure. Sorry to say it, but the more you test the closer we get to the real answer...DMI verification is the key, and it definitley sounds like something just simply winked out, namely the piece that assigns chucks of addresses and interrupts to the memory....In BIOS, you don't have any memory holes enabled, do you? Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Jay
What's a memory hole? How do I find out if I have one?

Phil 15:50

 

[DBSSP]

try very carefully bending the bent pin back into place and pluggin a mouse, then boot and see what happens...it's 50/50 that the two pins touching shorted out something vital on the board...or even just bend the pin slightly back so as to seperate them and try booting. Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[DBSSP]

in BIOS..keep in mind some boards have this some don't, You should have an option that says Memory Hole at **H-***, the asterisks represent a combination of numbers and letters. See what happens if you disable it. I don't know anybody who has actually enabled it, but it's worth a shot at checking it. Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[DBSSP]

The socket on the board for the mouse wasn't damaged, was it? Definitely a worthy culprit should it be. As I said 50/50....I hope it's the better of the two! Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Jay
Just tried bending the pins back into place, not easy! It's like microsurgery.

The socket looks good, so I've just phoned the wife for a new mouse. She'll be back in 90 minutes.

I fear that something has shorted out on the MOBO, and it will have to be replaced.

Have we broken the record yet?

Phil 16:00

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Jay

Found memory hole, memory hole at 15M-16M, it was disabled. I enabled it and saved, booted, same, went into BIOS and memory hole was disabled until I highlighted it, and it immediately changed to enabled. I've disabled it and saved.

Phil 16:05

 

[mudskipper]

Well, just for informational purposes, some systems have to have a memory hole enabled. This essentially 'reserves' that spot so that something else can use it. The one example that I can think of is Roxio Goback when using Win2k. Otherwise the system hangs at "verifying DMI data pool"....Hmmmmmmmm.

As for the mouse...we already know that unplugging it (or changing it) did us no good. If it is possible that it somehow plugged in funny and shorted something out (I have NEVER seen that), then the damage is already done.....

As much as I want to see you get this fixed, it is looking more and more like swapping that motherboard is just simply going to be the way to go! ----------------------------------------
Groucho Marx said it best...
"A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five."

 

[DBSSP]

You don't have that software installed do you? Hey Mud, is that software always wanting a mem hole or is it strictly proprietary to W2K? At any rate it seems the problem is still there and I have very little doubt that it's terminal. I've seen such things happen with boards but it usually results in I/O errors and not DMI errors...older board so it's hard to tell...Did you look to see if any fuses on the I/O side of things are blown? Some boards have this, some don't. Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"