Major PC problem

[norman]

My Tiny pc has died.
It's a P2, 266LX with an AT440LX motherboard.
Basically, nothing happens when it powers up.
i.e. No boot PROM display at all, no beeps at all.
The hard disk doesn't spin up (the light stays on constantly), but the fan works. The CD draw won't open.
Monitor & lead etc are fine as have connected to another pc.
When I take it to bits the following occurs:
If I disconnect the hdd from the motherboard, it will spin up.
If I disconnect the cd from the m/board it will open and shut.
So it seems that the IDE controllers are dead (applies whichever one I connect in to).
But it doesn't get that far in the boot process - not even as far as the floppy - which never even lights up.
I feel the m/board has died, but if anyone has any last ditch thoughts, please let me know.
Unfortunately, being "temporarily at my leisure" I've no access to another desktop to check to see if the disk's ok - I'm working from my notebook - so if the disk has crashed I've no way of knowing.
Luckily, it's all backed up (yeah right)
Cheers to anyone who can help !

 

[DimPrawn]

Serves you right for buying such a 'Tiny' computer!

Look at www.microlanduk.com

Get yourself a modern computer in kit form for about £250, running at 1.8Ghz with sheds loads of RAM.

Time to move on!

 

[norman]

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Thanks for the advice - but got no dosh since my last contract was axed some time ago - so I'm looking for a "free" solution !
So - anyone any ideas ?

 

[DimPrawn]

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Re: .

Try changing the BIOS battery. I had all sorts of bootup problems with my 2 yr old pc until i spent £3.50 on a BIOS battery. Got it from Currys. The Lithium cell was sitting alongside the usual PP3 etc by the checkout.

Once the BIOS loses its settings, or they get scrambled by a duff battery you have to pull out the old one and put in the new one and then setup all the BIOS settings again.

Cheaper than a new PC. You could try stealing a new PC. that is very cost effective way to upgrade...

 

[norman]

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Nice one - I'll give it a go (the battery, that is !)
Cheers !

 

[norman]

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Dim Prawn -
Bought the battery, plugged in, no difference.
Can't build a BIOS recover boot diskette cos the file the unzips that I get from the intel web site to put on a boot floppy does not fit on a floppy (1.45Mb in size !)
Who knows where I go from here ?
Cheers for your help anyway !

 

[DimPrawn]

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Tip.

Take the battery out and short out the connectors (MAKE SURE THE PC IS NOT PLUGGED IN 1ST!) where the battery goes to discharge any capacitor that may be holding up the voltage.

Wait 30 mins and then put the battery back in.

Power up. If it was the BIOS memory, it should load with the defaults.

Most modern motherboards use NVRAM to hold the boot up code. If the BIOS code is scramble you will have to take the PC to a repair specialist to get the corrupted version overwritten.

Me thinks you should buy an new motherboard, CPU and RAM for £150....

 

[norman]

The solution !

The solution !

For anyone who's interested:

It was the power supply.
It appears that although it didn't blow, it was dropping voltage hence it could power one device up, but not many.
Slight loss of data when disk crashed, but only trivial.
Twenty five quid - job done.

Happy bunny !

 

[DimPrawn]

Re: The solution !

Re: The solution !

At least your BIOS won't fail now for a couple of years!