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I have an old p200 packerd bell, that i tried to get to work today. I hooked it up to a monitor that i just tested(and it works) with no io cards, memory or ide cables in and powered it up. Power light comes on, cpu fan comes on, and ps fan comes on but no video, beep codes, or anything.
I think the mb is shot, if you have an idea of what else might be wrong go ahead, i would really appriciate any help. :confused:
I've never tested a MB without memory. I'm going to "reach" and say you need some.
If I'm not mistakened you need to have your memory (RAM) in place.
Go ahead and put some memory in it and see what happens.
Hi
Packard Bells can be something of a law unto themselves :)
1. Do you get any activity from the HDD like noise and flashing lights?
2. Does the floppy drive light up then go out?
I would try installing a video card and a sound card and as suggested some memory. I think the beeps will depend on the BIOS. I have a couple of old Compaqs that will beep if there is no memory, but I think that this is because they have 8Mb fixed on the MoBo. The BIOS/CMOS thinks that there should be more and complains?
Some PCs have all removable memory, so nothing would happen with them. You might also check the battery, as some machines won't work if it is flat?
Cheers
Well, I don't know about Packard Bell's but in NORMAL computers :) you shouldn't need to have RAM or even a CPU on the board for it to at least get to the BIOS as it is firmware and it should work as long as your video is functioning.
Uhm... are you sure about that? I'm not about to yank my computer apart to prove it, but...Quote:
Originally posted here by mrcoffee12
in NORMAL computers :) you shouldn't need to have RAM or even a CPU on the board for it to at least get to the BIOS
IMO a Packard Bell is not a "normal computer"
This is a P200?...............not the latest? I have a P150 and stand by what I said :D
Merry Christmas
I no floppy and have the hd , and cdrom unplugged so they do not come on at boot, it has 640k of onboard soldered on ram, and integrated graphics. the hd read light doesn't come on because the harddrive is disconnected. I haven't tried start with no cpu but i will try if you say it should boot to bois if mb okay.
I just check the cmos battery it only had .5v and falling! I think it might be why it won't boot, thanks for the idea nihil i hope this is what is wrong, i will go buy a new one right NOW. :D
So far things look OK..................attach HD and at least one memory strip, then tell me what happens?
Merry Christmas
Johnno
Couldn't get battery tonight, store already closed, get one on friday.
nihil, if i add ram and connect hd and start i get harddrive powerup, read light comes on the goes off after a second with no video, beeps , or any other hard drive activity or noise.Dead cmos battery is what it think is wrong, i'll fix it asap and post if it works or not.
I wouldn't think it's a dead CMOS vattery. I've had that hapopen before and the computer will generally start up fine every time, but put you into a BIOS setup screen every time where you will have to re-enter the date, time, and IDE specs. Then you lose that when the computer shuts down. But I think it weuld still start with a dead battery.
In any case, replacing the battery if it's so low certainly cannot hurt. And putting in RAM will at least get the POST to the point where it can give you some beep codes which you can then look up in the documentation, or most can also be found at the manufacturer's website.
I found out what's wrong, several pins on the intel pci controller were bent touching each other, they are way to small for me to bend back so i will throw it away. :(
well hey, if your not using it or you can find another one just stick a phillips head screwdriver in and run it through, it will ruin the slot but it should get the pins to not touch :)