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08-13-2006, 01:41 PM
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#1 |
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Member (2 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3
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!! Intermittent Booting - Please help !!
Hi folks,
My first post here. Having problems with a PC I am trying to build for my daughters birthday (first time that I have tried to build). I have a socket A chip and motherboard, 1Gb of the correct DDR memory and want to use the onboard sound and video. I have fitted the MB to the case along with the chip, heatsink etc. All seems to be properly connected. So I have an intermittent fault and it will not always boot up. About 10% of the time the PC will boot up just fine. The rest of the time the power light on the case turns on and stays on. The fans turn on and stay on. The HD starts to spin (did manage to get the OS on there on one successful boot), briefly although I think it then stops and then nothing .... no output to the monitor etc but the fans and light continue. Oddly, when the PC is working fine then the reset button works, when it is not the reset button seems disabled. Can someone please help me diagnose what the problem could be, I am get anxious and we have no local computer repair stores in our community. Thanks you in advance to kind individuals who can offer some help. Carl 
Last edited by carluk; 08-13-2006 at 01:43 PM. Reason: Spelling |
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08-13-2006, 01:46 PM
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#2 |
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9mm wins.
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Behind my Glock 34.
Posts: 4,544
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First lets start off with your system specifications. Brand and model of each major component please.
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08-13-2006, 01:52 PM
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#3 |
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Member (2 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3
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Hey, thanks for the quick response !
Ok, this is what I know: The CPU is an AMD Athlon Socket A 2200 The MB is an ASRock KS741 The Memory is Crucial DDR 266 2300 The HD is an 80Gb Diamond Max The Graphics Card is a Radeon 9550 AGP made by Sparkle Is there any other info you need. Thanks again for helping, I have spent the last 2 weekends trying to sort this out and I am an unhappy (and unpopular) daddy at the moment ! Carl |
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08-13-2006, 01:52 PM
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#4 |
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9mm wins.
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Behind my Glock 34.
Posts: 4,544
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The components you listed are pretty good. What brand and model is your PSU (power supply unit)?
If you PSU appears on the BAD list here: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=131195, I would suggest you replace it. Right now your problem sounds like it is PSU related. Last edited by minsonngo; 08-13-2006 at 02:10 PM. |
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08-13-2006, 02:37 PM
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#5 |
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Member (5 bit)
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Currently in South Carolina
Posts: 18
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you mentioned that the fans spin, I take it that you have more than one, swap the power wires for the fans {hopefully they are both the 3 wire type} the fans may spin but if the MD doesnt sense the cpu is spinning the mb wont boot up, that woult rule out another possible problem, Ive had fans lose the spin sensing capability and chased the problem through swapping power suppliesout of the case build, etc just to be a fan that lost the sensing feature. Good Luck
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08-14-2006, 05:59 AM
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#6 |
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Member (2 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3
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Thanks for the replies.
The PSU is an unbranded type, 350W. It came in the unbranded case I bought. With regards the fans, there are three: The CPU Fan, the PSU fan and the Graphics card fan. I cant switch anyone of them over though because they all have different fittings. Carl .... still baffled ! |
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08-14-2006, 08:33 AM
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#7 |
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9mm wins.
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Behind my Glock 34.
Posts: 4,544
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My advice would be to swap out the power supply unit first.
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08-14-2006, 08:44 AM
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#8 |
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Member (5 bit)
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Currently in South Carolina
Posts: 18
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You said this is a motherboard you had sitting around, unplug the power coard from the power supply, press the start button (fans may try to spin for a sec), take the battery off the motherboard and let sit for 30 mins, this will reset the bios to default settings, You had mentioned the reset button intermittant, that leads me to think the bios is getting stuck, and that is usually a battery problem or a hardware problem, IE Jumper pins. Does the hard drive have an operating system installed? or is the hard drive empty? If there is an operating system installed, unplug the cdrom and front case and if there are anything else not needed for basic operation, then retry to boot. If the Power Supply is weak that may get it to boot. What does that unbranded power supply show as the output watts on the +12volt. If it boots with the power load minimized change the power supply to one off the known good power supply list. There is a thread about the list. Another thing you can try is a bootable version of Linux like Kanotix (free download). Set the cdrom as first boot devise and it will boot up into Linux, if Linux will boot all the way up, play with it for a while, being hard drive independent you will know if the hard drive is acting up, if the pc wont boot, try disconnecting the hard drive and booting with Linux with the cdrom. Just different ways of troubleshooting and isolating bad components. Good Luck
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