SK8N boot problem
nullified
have a look at, and I wanted some advice. The problem the owner had
was that his comp refused to boot up at all, and gave a series of BIOS
beeps that he neglected to make a note of. I noticed that several of
the cables were stretched over other devices as though he'd unplugged
them all and replaced them in a different order but he says he hasn't
opened the case at all. After reseating the SATA cables (twin drives,
dont know if they are set in a RAID array or not) the machine
responded to its power button by running all the fans and I could hear
at least one of the hard drives spinning up. However, nothing at all
via the monitor.
Whipped the AGP card out and tried in another machine, all well there.
Replaced it, reseated its power supply, still no output to screen.
Whipped it out again and booted the machine to see if I got any BIOS
beeps to signify no graphics card, but although the machine 'appears'
to boot there were no beeps. With the card installed, the Hercules
graphics cards fan starts to run, so its definitely getting power. And
it works in another machine okay. I then removed all the cards, SATA
cables, and memory, and booted again. It started up by spinning the
fans on the board, but still no BIOS beeps.
How can I move forward? I dont have another SATA hard drive to boot a
known good copy of Windows from - all my drives are PATA
Paul
So what you've verified at this point, is the computer speaker is
broken :-)
If the board has no video card or no memory, there should be a beep
code. Especially if there isn't built-in video in the Northbridge.
You could try clearing the CMOS, with the computer unplugged. Sometimes
the contents of the CMOS can be corrupted, causing strange symptoms.
(The CMOS is a RAM built into the Southbridge chip, and the contents
of the RAM are maintained by the PSU and by the CMOS battery. Using the
Clear_RTC jumper, while unplugged, is supposed to reset it.)
I think the first thing I'd try to do, is get back a consistently
operating computer speaker that beeps. So you have at least some kind
of diagnostic info to go on, no matter how little info it seems to
give.
Actually, looking in the manual, it shows a piezo speaker device on
the motherboard itself. Strange that it doesn't beep then, and
tries to boot. I'd carefully pull the RAM (power off, unplug before
doing), and see if you can get some beeps out of it. I also notice
the PANEL header has the pins for SPKR as well. If the computer
case has a speaker, you could try using that interface instead.
There is no Vocal POST system on the board, that I can see. Some
Asus motherboards have a Winbond chip, which delivers voice messages
to the green Lineout connector on the back of the computer. But
I don't see the Vocal POST error list in the manual, and I also
don't even see room for the two chips that support that function.
So my advice would be, get the beep function working (if you really
are seeing signs that the thing is booting), then simplify the hardware
setup, proving things work a bit at a time. To drive the beep function,
the processor must be working and able to read BIOS code. The BIOS
code can work well enough, to deliver beeps if the RAM is missing,
or if the video is not there. But if, for any reason, the processor
is not able to read the BIOS and execute it, then you'd get silence
from the average board.
What is your proof that it is booting ? Does the IDE LED stay lit
for extended periods of time ? If the LED just flashes once, that
isn't much proof.
Paul
nullified
Heh, quite possibly!
>If the board has no video card or no memory, there should be a beep
>code. Especially if there isn't built-in video in the Northbridge.
>
Nope, no onboard video
>You could try clearing the CMOS, with the computer unplugged. Sometimes
>the contents of the CMOS can be corrupted, causing strange symptoms.
>(The CMOS is a RAM built into the Southbridge chip, and the contents
>of the RAM are maintained by the PSU and by the CMOS battery. Using the
>Clear_RTC jumper, while unplugged, is supposed to reset it.)
>
Didnt have a manual handy, so decided on the other route to clear the
CMOS - the battery is out and I'll look at it again in the morning
No, the LED is lit once power is introduced, flashes off when the
power button is pressed, and then remains lit. What made me think it
was at least 'attempting' to boot is that if I press the power button
it doesn't turn it off - I need to hold it down for six seconds or so
before it shuts down. Then if I press the power button again, nothing
happens. I have to hold the power button down for eight or ten secs,
then release it, and when I press it *again*, then it'll start the
fans spinning.