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I picked up two systems this weekend to fix for a friend. However, something wierd happened in the move. The power supply failed in one and I cannot get either to work with my monitor. Is there anyway I can trouble shoot to see if the boards went bad. One has a internal video, doesn't show on my monitor. The other has a PCI does not show up. My home PC & laptop show up fine. My PC has an AGP card and will not fit in either, and the PCI will not work in either.
First of all, what did your friend say was wrong with the systems . . . what needed to be fixed? Were either system working at all before you moved them? Do you know for sure that the power supply is dead in the one system? Did you test it on a working system? What information can you provide on the systems (e.g. manufacturer, model#, motherboard, etc.)? When you say the PCI will not work in either system, do you mean the PCI slot or are you referring to a specific PCI card? Do you have extra working AGP/PCI video cards, memory and CPU/Heatsink/Fan units for testing purposes? If you can provide a little more information, I may be able to steer you in the right direction.
V.
From the PM I got from CT2600. It seems he picked up two working systems from a friends house. Left them in the car over night and brought them into the house the next morning. He went to start up system #1 and nothing. Determined it was the power supply and replaced it. It seems to be tunning, but no internal fuctions. If he removes the RAM no beeps and his monitor is showing self test. System #2 seems to be running, but same problem with the monitor. However, the montor works fine on three other systems. He pulled the video card out of system #2, worked fine in his computer, just not #1 or #2. Tried another monitor, will not work for #1 or #2. The motherboard in question is a Socket 370 Celeron 600MHz. I guess he just picked a replacement up off the internet the last time I talked to him. (Last Night 9:00 PM EST via PM & IM).
I hope he has tested with a video lead that he knows works?
What kind of monitor is he using......can he try another one. I know that when I test/fix things for friends I generally only want the base unit. If he is using an LCD monitor, these boxes might not have the drivers?
Also, I have come across a very weird situation where I moved six computers from one room to another............somehow two of them had reset themselves to a resolution/refresh rate that the monitor would not support?
I never found the answer to that one, other than to reset the values :mad: .
Has he tried booting into safe mode?
It just seems odd that two machines that were working now don't............I guess I would go back and get the peripherals for them for a "clean" test
"Left them in the car" huh?.................any chance of frost or condensation here? neither are well loved by computers :)
Cheers
Well, um thanx IT :confused: I guess...
I tried different monitors that I know for a fact work. I was using a Gateway EV700 at first and then tried two different ones.
Has he tried booting into safe mode? I can get any type of visual other than the Monitor's self test on all the monitors I tried.
It just seems odd that two machines that were working now don't............I guess I would go back and get the peripherals for them for a "clean" test (((TRIED IT)))
"Left them in the car" huh?.................any chance of frost or condensation here? neither are well loved by computers .... I THINK YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!
If it was the frost or condensation, do you think everything is FRIED or just the motherboard, or just the processor or what?
I will guess on this, the most likely things to get damaged by frost are the CMOS and BIOS chips, but I don't know how cold and for how long. They would be wiped of stored data, hence, no peripherals will work.
Cases off...warm room...5 days...then try again.
After that, take one of the hard drives and attach it to a working computer as a slave drive (sod political correctness, we have an AO member in trouble here)...so remember to adjust the jumper settings to slave :D
If you cannot read intelligible data from it you may pronounce the pair dead.
The power supply, processor and RAM have a much better chance of survival, and it could be just the chips that I mentioned.
Keep us posted and the best of luck!
CT2600 -
Can you get into the CMOS at all? Have you checked to see if there are jumpers for the video? What I mean is, that mobos with onboard video many times have jumpers to enable or disable them and will have CMOS settings telling the motherboard to use the onboard chip or PCI slot for display purposes.
I was also told that cold temps can be harmful to a system and that it is always a good idea to allow the system to 'return to room temperature' before trying to power up.
Is there any possibility that the board is shorting out in the case? Have you tried pulling either board and testing them outside of a case?
V.