PC Boot up problems

[afantom]

Hi I have been experiencing a number of PC Problems.

The one I have not managed to solve is that my PC will not Boot up sometimes, particularly after I have moved it. The PC front Lights come on but the CD drive and DVD drive lights do not come on and the system does not boot up, I dont think the hard drive starts up. I do not get any beeps from the Motherboard. The CPU, PSU and case fans are operating and the light on the Motherboard is on, + my neon light works (sad – I know). I have tried reconnecting everything - power + leads but that does not really seem to help.

Then after a number of failed attempts the pc suddenly decides to boot up with no problems and it seems to work for a while until I get the same problem.

I changed the IDE cables for the cd / dvd and hard drive and reformatted the hard drive the situation seems to have improved – but annoyingly I am still getting the same problem occasionally.

MY system Specs are:

Athlon XP 2400+
500 Meg Ram PC 2100
Win XP
Radeon 9600XT
ECS motherboard


I thought that it could be a PSU problem and as I was planning to upgrade in the near future I purchased a new case with a 500w PSU. But this did not solve the problem. I was also having heat issues with the CPU so I changed that and heatsink as well. I was considering that I may be the hard drive failing – so I tried with a old hard drive but found the same problem (although this was before I replaced the IDE cables)

There seems to be no real reason for it.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Sylvander]

Download my diagnostic flowcharts from here
www.erniek.eclipse.co.uk/downloads/sylvanderdiags.zip
and print them to leaf through.

You apparently have an intermittant failure to POST.

Begin on the:
START UP chart
1. Is the PC dead? No. [You have fans, lights, etc]
2. Did POST appear to run? No.
3. Were there any audible beeps? No. [a single short beep indicates successful completion of POST]
4. The Power-On Self-Test failed to complete. In fact the BIOS probably didn't run the POST at all. [NO POST]
[The video card is only enabled if POST completes so there will be no display]

NO POST
1. Are the PSU voltages correct? Check them if you can. If they are not you may have a faulty PSU. Assuming they ARE ok then:
2. Disconnect all peripherals and system adaptor cards except the keyboard and video card/monitor.
3. Does the POST now run reliably? If it doesn’t then your system board [or something on it (CPU, video card, memory)] is faulty. If it does run every time, then:
4. Re-connect the floppy disk drive and run advanced diagnostic software from a floppy disk.
[Get “TuffTest-Lite” from http://www.tufftest.com/free.htm or better if you can. This is a basic diagnostic program but still useful and very easy to use.]
5. Does the system board pass? If not then it is faulty. If it does pass then:
6. Switch off and re-connect ONE peripheral/adaptor card.
7. Does POST now run every time? If it doesn’t this last device connected is faulty and should be disconnected. If it does run the device should be tested using the diagnostics and if it fails is faulty and should be disconnected. If it passes it's ok and should be included.
8. Repeat from step 6 until all devices are tested, all faulty are excluded and all working are included, then re-test the system.

If you want to simplify the test for a first attempt at a fix you could assume the PSU is ok and leave out the tests with diagnostic software.

I once had an intermittant failure to POST and it was caused by an old, noisy fan that was about to fail and I think was shorting the PSU. When I replaced it with a new one the problem was fixed.

[afantom]

Thanks for the above and i have downloaded the flow charts

Any ideas on how i can check my PSU voltages?

I have looked in the bios but doesnt seem to give much info. I was wondering if there was a program.

I have also unplugged my graphics card and tried to boot up and received no beeps from the Motherboard. Not sure if they are supposed to come from the MB or the case speaker. I do not have a case speaker.

anyway thanks again

[Sylvander]

For info on testing ATX power supply:
See this
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8680
Then the below, here
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=152496#post152496

"I have looked in the bios but doesnt seem to give much info. I was wondering if there was a program."
If you have an intermittant failure to POST it's almost certainly caused by an intermittant hardware fault.
I don't think it likely there's anything wrong with the BIOS's configuration settings as shown in the BIOS Setup.

There should be an internal speaker inside the PC case.
Are you sure you don't have one?
One way to check is [as instructed on the START UP CHART]:
Remove the RAM and startup without it.
You should hear warning beeps indicating no memory was detected.

If you would like a document on the BIOS Setup's settings [compiled from the info on this site], send me a personal message giving an email address to send it to.
It' the kind of thing you read, a little at a time, over an extended period, and it's worth having.