booting problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter MikeJohnes
  • Start date Start date
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MikeJohnes

Hello. I've got a computer with a asus P2B motherboard.
It has worked alright up till now and whenever it has booted into WindowsXP
it has been very stable.
However lately it has refused to move past the following stage on boot up:-

Award Modular Bios etc etc...
Asus P2B ACPI Bios Revision 1014
Pentium 3 500Mhz
Memory test

Award Plug Play Bios Extension v1.0A
Initialize Plug and Play Cards
PNP Init Completed

Trend Chip Anti Virus R Onboard

Found CDROM -Toshiba
Found CDROM - etc etc

All of this is successful and normal. At the very start there is the single
beep saying everything is ok.
Then at the stage where it finds the CDROM drives it stops.
If I then tap the computer the power to the monitor stops, the screen goes
blank and there are either 3 or 4 short high pitched beeps of equal length.
This then keeps happening when I tap the computer. The power to the monitor
comes on very briefly, then blanks out and I get the 3 or 4 short beeps.

I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed that
to see what would happen.
But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at all
and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed by 3
short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms are very
different from what I'm experiencing.

If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
finding the cdroms drives)
Can anyone help please?
Thanks.
 
"MikeJohnes" said:
Hello. I've got a computer with a asus P2B motherboard.
It has worked alright up till now and whenever it has booted into WindowsXP
it has been very stable.
However lately it has refused to move past the following stage on boot up:-

Award Modular Bios etc etc...
Asus P2B ACPI Bios Revision 1014
Pentium 3 500Mhz
Memory test

Award Plug Play Bios Extension v1.0A
Initialize Plug and Play Cards
PNP Init Completed

Trend Chip Anti Virus R Onboard

Found CDROM -Toshiba
Found CDROM - etc etc

All of this is successful and normal. At the very start there is the single
beep saying everything is ok.
Then at the stage where it finds the CDROM drives it stops.
If I then tap the computer the power to the monitor stops, the screen goes
blank and there are either 3 or 4 short high pitched beeps of equal length.
This then keeps happening when I tap the computer. The power to the monitor
comes on very briefly, then blanks out and I get the 3 or 4 short beeps.

I thought it might be a problem with the AGP graphics card so I removed that
to see what would happen.
But the boot up pattern is very different. It then just doesn't boot at all
and stops at the beginning with one long, low pitched beep followed by 3
short ones. So it is not a graphics card problem as these symptoms are very
different from what I'm experiencing.

If I go into the bios setup the computer recognizes the 2 hard drives.
But the boot up procedure always stops at the stage mentioned above. (at
finding the cdroms drives)
Can anyone help please?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Do you have another power supply you can try ?
Power supply problems seem to be the number one failure item.

You might also do a careful visual inspection of the motherboard.
Sometimes a chip doesn't get properly soldered at the factory,
and it might have just decided to loosen up. Maybe tapping on the
case, is causing the chip to make and break connections, like
an intermittent connection.

A careful visual inspection, means using a magnifying glass, and
going over the whole board. It also means removing the motherboard
from the case, removing any components that would obscure the surface
of the motherboard. I would only do this, if the power supply idea
doesn't pan out.

You might get lucky, and when you reassemble the computer, it just
might decide to work again. If there is a bad connection somewhere,
or a short somewhere in the previously assembly...

Paul


Paul
 
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