PC done belly up

[luke]

My old 500mgz PC gave up the goat.

Must have been because of the 100+ restarts till I got those TCP/IP configs right for my network & ICS.

A. Sometimes:-
When I press the button, the Green PWR lites-up, the Red HD lights-up for 3-4 secs and goes out, but the floppy light stays on continously.

The PCU fan runs, but there is no activity from the HD as it boots-up, and nothing on the screen (which is S/Wed ON by the way).

I put in another HD with no difference.

I put in another floppy no difference

I recycled all cables, Ram sticks, & even the CPU.

B. Sometimes:-
Boots up saying "Floppy drive fault" do F1 & it boots OK,
but no floppy of caurce.

Please, please do'nt say dump it as cannot afford another for the wife.

Saving to upgrade mine with the bits you say for the fs9.

Any ideas to get me going for a while?          luke

[congo]

Hi Luke,

Sorry to hear the bad news, but maybe all is not lost.

This can happen because of a bad drive, Disconnect all your drives (and their cables) and see if it will post the usual screen info at startup and see if you can enter BIOS setup, if you can, then the PC is still ok. If not, then you have a basic fault with a major component other than drives.

If you do get a post, then add the hard drive, see if it works still, then the other drives one by one until you elominate the culprit.

If there is no post at all, do you get any error beeps?

Somtimes a loose or misaligned addon card will cause boot failure.

If you get it all stripped down except for mobo, RAM, cpu and video card, and it STILL wont post, then you could try another video card, ram, or cpu if you have spare parts to try, and in that order.

Worst case is a bad mainboard.

It could also be the power supply has bitten the dust, try another PSU if you can lay your hands to one.

Remember though, strip out the drives first to eliminate them totally from the cause.

[luke]

What is a "post" , an error message?

Please note, Sometimes A & B cases & actions taken.

When it boots I got into Bios setup to check floppy OK.

Just one normal bib at first start.

No errors except, if it does manage to boot "NO Floppy",
and when it starts, tried 4 floppies and none works, and light REMAINS ON continously.   ? is it Mobo end of cable?

Thnx congo

And stripped & refitted all except cdrom. I'll do that too now plus PSU.

[Scorpiоn]

POST // Power On Self Test (AKA Boot-Up)

[the_autopilot]

POST // Power On Self Test (AKA Boot-Up)

Its the screen you get with all the info on your comp like mhz, memory, etc.

If you have an OEM computer, it might display the OEM logo (like the dell logo or something).

[H]

Your BIOS can be set up to cycle through floppy, CD and HDs; a bad cable/connection can also cause a problem (can even cause an intermittant problem if it's the plug-in connection, itself).
Thus, also prior to any major recourse, make certain all cables are in working order (for instance, if the one to the floppy is bad you will get a floppy failure warning while the floppy, itself, is good).

[congo]

One beep is a normal good start, so your PC is ok. I think......

Constant light on the floppy usually means the floppy is dead or the cable is fitted incorrectly, usually the latter.

Cabling is "critical". You will get errors or boot failures if it's incorrect.

If you are not sure about all aspects of cabling, let me know and I will post the details.

If you haven't touched any cables prior to your problem, and the drives all check out fine... then it may be the mainboard that is failing. I call this type of problem I/O chip errors, and I attribute it to the mainboard's logic failing to configure the drives through malfunction. Answer: new mobo

Fortunately, I/O failure is rare and usually occurs through incorrect installation of hardware which involves cables carrying voltage/current to non-compliant hardware......... (plugging in the wrong cable to the wrong device, yup, some people will just MAKE it fit!) Other causes could be PSU failure or damage to mainboard I/O logic via power spikes or other voltage/current irregularities.

You must do what i said in my first

[congo]

POST // Power On Self Test (AKA Boot-Up)

How true Sk

[luke]

Sorry, did not explain, as I had things change the floppy in bios to "None" before, that is what I went to check, and called it OK.

Nothing was moved, just out of the blue one morning.

As I said, all were removed & replaced from CPU downwards, including the CDRom at the end, in a process of elimination, the most suspect Floppy cable was even renewed and if you noticed I tried 3 other known good floppies to no avail.

Now, prepare for it......, late last night just before dumping the PC, fearing the Mobo end of the cable, why I do not know I exchanged floppies with my XP PC.

Both floppies worked & both PCs now are OK!

This is posted from the 98, networked & ICS'ed, as if nothing has happened.

Thnx for the help, will see what happens next.

I am dog goned,                   luke

[congo]

well that was easy.

It's not because the machine is configured for a 2.88mb floppy drive or vice versa is it? I don't know if that would cause such an upset......

I hope it keeps on working for you now.