PC Hardware diagnosis reqd

I throw myself on the mercy of the FOAK.

A couple of days ago, my PC just hung. No life from keyboard or
mouse. So I re-booted it, and it wouldn't POST - I got the BIOS logo,
but then nothing else. I unplugged the mains lead, counted to 10, and
plugged it in - this time it POSTed, but wouldn't boot, cos it
couldn't find a boot sector. Reseting again and investigating the
BIOS settings found that it had lost the 'system' SATA drive from the
boot list. So I fixed that, and it came up OK. I set a backup
running, as I thought there may be trouble ahead.

Today it did the same thing. Except unplugging the mains for 10
seconds didn't fix it, so I left it unplugged as I was off out. On
return, I plugged it in and it POSTed ok, and had the same 'drive lost
from the boot seq' issue. It's up and running ok now, but I suspect
there's something serious going on.

Any recommendations? I spose it's worth taking the cover over and
checking everything is seated ok. Apart from that, I don't know what
to do apart from fire up www.scan.co.uk and go looking for a new mobo
and CPU (which, given that this box is a cheapy I put together 3 1/2
years ago, isn't the worst suggestion).

 

Champ,

As you have already said, reseat EVERYTHING, without looking at it, Id
say its a dodgy ram chip issue, but it could be anything internally, up
to and including a fried motherboard. The fact it boots when cool,
points at a dry joint on "something".

--
Gavin.

For the road: GSXR600K1
For the track: <gone>
Current project: Peugeot Speedfight 2
For everything else: Citroën Berlingo

MSN:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gavin_wilby
Blog: http://www.stoof.co.uk

 

Dodgy Cmos battery ?

 

Long shot ... CMOS battery? CR2032 or similar on there somewhere? Pop
it out and stick the DMM on it (typically 3V).

T i m

 

Bios battery?

 

You want one of these new Acer Aspire Revo R3600 jobs. Genuine HD
capable graphics adapter, Amazon has them listed at £149.

 

One of mine was doing the same thing a few weeks ago, except I had to
jumper the BIOS reset pins to make it post. Turned out to be a duff RAM
stick.


--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

power it down normally and leave it unplugged overnight to see if the
problem comes back (cmos battery)

get a copy of memtestX86 off t'interwebs and leave it running
overnight to see if there's a failing bit of RAM.

whip the lid off and check the CPU cooler isn't full of dust as the
lockups could be the cuase of overheating, whilst you're in there look
for any caps that look a bit odd (either leaning or bulging) on the
motherboard - usually machines run ok if the odd one fails but once a
few go it's game over.

 

Do such things 'go duff'? I thought that if they worked from new,
they worked forever?

 

Several others have said this, so I guess it's worth a shot. I didn't
realise the battery could hang the computer, mind. And it keeps time
just fine.

 

Sadly not, it just seems that way as they generally get upgraded before
they wear out. They're just like millions of tiny lightbulbs at the end
of the day, & heat cycles will eventually kill them, even if you scrub
them in properly.

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)

 

No, they can go. Google for 'memtest86+' and boot that. If it's not RAM,
I reckon the MB has had it.

 

I think the clue we used was the 'left un powered for a while'.

It can't normally other than by loosing your settings so not finding a
boot device etc.

Hmm ...

Check all the other stuff as well (reseating boards / memory [1] and
blowing the PSU / fans through with yer airline). Then some burn-in
tests in the hope it highlights summat.

T i m

[1] Remembering yer static handling.

 

Google for 'bathtub curve' and it should probably explain.

 

Heh. I once hamfistedly sheared a capacitor off completely whilst I
was installing the mobo into the case. Still working fine 5 years
later ...

Paul.

 

er, not identical symptoms at all, then - mine doesn't bluescreen. It
hangs.

I've got *plenty* of disk space, tyvm. I really don't think it's a
disk issue.

 

They will fail eventually, iirc on some BIOS you can get it to report
EDAC checks so you can see the increasing error rate (I might be
talking bollicks) but I'd certainly, as previous posters have
mentioned, reseat *everything* and replace the cattery. In all the
cases I've had where HDDs have gone missing, it's the battery.

Then I'd sacrifice a chicken or two, that usually works.

 

True, however I've generally found that as long as they (RAM) aren't
taken out by something else dying (typically a PSU) AND they have been
handled correctly (no static damage [1] and / or connector
contamination) they can generally outlive most of the other bits.

T i m

[1] (As I'm sure you all know) The problem with static damage is it
can simply weaken components and cause them to fail later on,
therefore there may be no obvious correlation between the incorrect
handling and the 'unexpected failure'.

http://www.static-sol.com/library/articles/ESD_damage.htm
Second pic of more of the board.
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/2181
Real world thoughts on ESD.
http://tinyurl.com/pmgbbf

 

Could be anything like the foak suggested. Also worth trying a new cheap
PSU, odd reboots, no displays, and dropping ethernet connections were the
symptoms I had on a mates PC a couple of weeks ago, swapping out the PSU
fixed it.

 

To follow up:
- I left the power lead disconnected all day
- on my return, I plugged it in, and it was dead, Jim. No lights, no
fan, no drive noise. Dead.
- I took the cover off, and removed the memory sticks. Plugged the
power in, and it tried to boot.
- I hoovered it out, refitted the memory, and I'm typing this on it
now. (After resetting the boot sequence in the BIOS again).

So, it looks like it was just a question of re-seating the memory?
But why is the BIOS losing settings - is that a separate battery
issue?