Need Help Reviving My Dead PC

[Keith Russell]

Hi, everyone.

I am having serious problems and really hope someone can help me.

My ancient Micron Millennia XKU has died. This is a backup/family
PC used mostly by my grandkids to play educational games.
However, it also serves as a second PC when we can't use the main
PC, for whatever reason.

Well, it picked the very worst time to do so. ActiveSync has
crashed on this PC, so I currently have no way to synchronize my
PDA. I need to get the Micron back up and working as a temporary
solution.

I have been getting BSODs for some time. Up until recently, I
would just reboot and everything would be fine. Recently these
have become more frequent, until finally Windows would refuse to
run.

I decided to reinstall XP. I first ran a repair installation.
After a copy of hours copying files with not much happening, I
aborted and started a clean reinstall. Again, it was agonizingly
slow, so I let it run overnight. When I woke up, I had another
BSOD, one I hadn't seen before:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to
prevent damage
to your computer.

The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually
indicates problem with the device itself or with the device
driver programming the hardware incorrectly.

Technical Information:
***STOP: 0x000000EA (0x80DC4900, 0x8DFA2C0, 0x80DFBA08,
0x00000001)

framebuf
Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for
further
assistance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, when I reboot, nothing at all happens--no display, nothing.
Booting from a floppy doesn't seem to do anything, either.

I'm about to head down to the second-hand computer store to buy
some basic components and start swapping. Any suggestions on
where to start? Display adapter? Hard drive? Motherboard? Other?

Thanks VERY much in advance for any suggestions you can provide.

--
Keith

[MikeB]

Do you get any beeps from POST that might indicate which component is
failing?

MikeB

[@charter.net Ben Myers]

I think I would start by running diagnostics on the equipment at hand, assuming
that the computer can still boot from floppy.

The most likely suspect in an 8-year old computer is hard drive failure, or
maybe a slow degradation of drive performance. Determine the manufacturer of
the drive, download the manufacturer's diagnostics, make a bootable floppy
according to the instructions, and run.

Next possibility is some failure in the memory, CPU or motherboard. A good and
free memory diagnostic is MEMTEST-86. Download it, make a bootable floppy
according to the instructions, and run it... Ben Myers

[Keith Russell]

Good question.

I had the speakers unplugged, so I plugged them back in and
booted. I hear no beeps at all; I'm not 100% sure that the
speakers are working, but I think they are.

I do hear a little bit of disk drive activity.

--
Keith

[Peter Emanuelsson]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 14:16:07 -0600, in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems, Keith Russell <5hub...@xemaps.com>
wrote:

>Good question.
>
>I had the speakers unplugged, so I plugged them back in and
>booted. I hear no beeps at all; I'm not 100% sure that the
>speakers are working, but I think they are.

Doesn't it have an internal speaker? (Either in the computer case or
onboard the motherboard.) You should have heard a short beep at the
beginning of a normal startup... if you've never heard that, the
internal speaker is probably defective or not connected.

>I do hear a little bit of disk drive activity.

If there is some hard drive activity, you might just have a graphic
card problem. On the other hand, many hard drives make some noise when
they get power (regardless of if the rest of the system is working or
not) due to self calibration / initiation. It all depends on _how
much_ disk activity you have.

What you said earlier about more and more frequent BSOD's makes me
think about the infamous "bad capacitor" problem.
http://www.badcaps.net/

In short: A few years back, a LOT of motherboards suffered from
problems with electrolyte capacitors due to manufacturing errors.
However, capacitors can fail even if they are "normal". And yes, there
are capacitors on lots of places in a computer. The most common ones
to fail are those on the motherboard itself, and those in the power
supply. Indications of a bad capacitor is if it has a bulgy top, or if
there is leakage.

Another possible cause is heat problems. Perhaps a bad fan somewhere?
Or perhaps just tons of dust in the CPU cooler?

[Kevin Childers]

For a computer circa 1998, the MB speaker would be built in, it's usually
about the size of a thimble.. Depending on the manufacturer the beep code
may vary slightly. Some even have a synthetic speech option that will tell
you if there is a problem. This POST beep code is run before anything else
on the computer and is the most basic of systems checks. It is hard coded
in the BIOS chip and unless that has failed (say a bad BIOS Flash (update)
it should be telling you something.

If there is no beep, then there is no POST and the system will halt before
any other hardware is initiated from the MB. Ergo your MB is dead. Barring
that I'd suggest you run a HD diagnostic using the software available at
your HD's manufacturer's web site. as for other hardware you can strip the
system to a bare bones configuration with know good components. E.G. (1)
HD, RAM, Keyboard, Mouse, Graphics Card (the more basic the card the
better). Boot it from a DOS/Windows Start-up FD and see what you get. If
it all works, try shutting down and adding components one at a time. If it
doesn't work, it is probably the MB and good luck finding one that old. 8
Years in computer years is equal to decades in Automotive years. Not to
mention if there is anything proprietary in the systems design.

KC

"Peter Emanuelsson" <pet...@may.all.spammers.die> wrote in message
news:Wp7MRO0I0dmMaf=mmOlVd...@4ax.com...

[@charter.net Ben Myers]

Right. Rather than replace the motherboard with an exact matching one, a
near-impossible task, it would be better to drop in a newer Pentium 3/Celeron
Socket 370 board, either full ATX or microATX, with another CPU and faster SDRAM
memory.

The other possibility for the budget-impaired is to pull the hard drive and pick
up an newer computer system. Surplus P3/Celeron systems are a dime a dozen
around here.

If the OP is in central Massachusetts, I have plenty of P3 choices available for
very short money indeed... Ben Myers

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 10:03:14 -0500, "Kevin Childers" <kchi...@mail.win.org>
wrote:

[Kevin Childers]

For that local I'd suspect there might be more than a few back end shops
selling of hardware from lease returns and liquidated companies.
Compare cost and you may find the alternative to replacing a MB, etc to be
very affordable.

KC

"Ben Myers" <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net> wrote in message
news:k8kpc2l06qvcgrfv6...@4ax.com...

[Howard Kaikow]

"Ben Myers" <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net> wrote in message
news:k8kpc2l06qvcgrfv6...@4ax.com...

> Right. Rather than replace the motherboard with an exact matching one, a
> near-impossible task, it would be better to drop in a newer Pentium
3/Celeron
> Socket 370 board, either full ATX or microATX, with another CPU and faster
SDRAM
> memory.
>
> The other possibility for the budget-impaired is to pull the hard drive
and pick
> up an newer computer system. Surplus P3/Celeron systems are a dime a
dozen
> around here.

If the files are backed up, one could buy a relatively inexpensive new PC,
especially if one is a Costco member.
If you were using just a single OS, this should be easy.

If a multiboot system, it would be harder.

> If the OP is in central Massachusetts, I have plenty of P3 choices
available for
> very short money indeed..

Ah shucks, the Taxachusetts tax holiday is over!