Double crash

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peahouse05

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Hi All
Both PCs crashed on Saturday evening and will not boot. Asrock KN84G, Sempron 3400 in bedroom and old Viglen 650MHz P3 in shed. I give the locations as they are on separate supply mcbs.
The lights flickered a couple of times during the evening but nothing else was affected.
They both show identical symtoms - POST is ok but then a black screen with a static white cursor at top left. Have tried reinstalling OSs, XP and Slackware and everything is fine until the mid-install reboot.
Luckily I have bought spares of everything for the Asrock over the last few month but with Sempron 3000 CPU - built this afternoon and on it now.
MBs damaged? Wiil try taking apart and rebuilding - any ideas most welcome.
Have just heard others in the area had problems at the same time.
Thanks in advance
peahouse05:thumb:
 
were either of the systems plugged inito a surge protector? Do you have problems with any of your other appliances? Ther might have been a small surge of electricity which could have fried your computers :(
 
Thanks Guys
Should think it is emp - have no surge protection but will get some now. Lucky the Asrock MB is quite cheap. No problems with other appliances.
Cheers
peahouse05
 
Hi All
Have the Asrock PC spread out on the bench and it passes POST as before but now shows a screen. Only connected the HDD and it detected it and there is an error message 'CMOS CHECKSUM BAD'. I think I have read that the BIOS is in this chip so it is not passing the boot sequence onto the HDD boot sector.
I'm probably wrong about some or all of this but it is end of MB I think.

Cheers
peahouse05:(
 
Thanks TriplexDread
Think this is a MB jumper job - will check instructions as I cannot see stuff printed on MB.
Cheers
peahouse05:thumb:
 
Thanks Abarbarian
Will buy a couple of those.
Have tried resetting the BIOS as suggested by TriplexDread - I still get the BIOS CHECKSUM BAD message and DATE and TIME wrongly set. Can get into SETUP and change these but cannot exit and save changes with f10. Read up on this and it seems that the BIOS ROM chip is ok but it is the RTC/NVRAM chip (powered by the BIOS battery) that stores setup changes and accesses the HDD boot sector, etc after POST. I'm pretty sure this cannot be cured by a BIOS update as that is dealing with a different chip, but I like to know why things fail to work.
I would be delighted if anyone can tell if this is accurate, or not.
Thanks for the advice
peahouse05:thumb:
 
have you tried changing the battery on the mb? Checksum errors are generally a dead battery if i remember right....

:)
 
Thanks both
Will definately try that. Only bought the MB a year ago but it could have been around for a lot longer.
Cheers
peahouse05:thumb:
 
Hi
Changed CMOS battery - had removed a new one from an old system a couple of months ago - no change. Have not yet pulled apart the old Viglen 650MHz P3 that crashed at the same time - must be the next step to try.
Never mind, still having fun - far more interesting than when they work!
Cheers
peahouse05:nod:
 
Hi All
It's ironic - managed to get old Viglen working by resetting the BIOS RAM, reinstalled Slackware and on this now. Stripped Asrock MB completely and found the only removable chip right next to the BIOS battery and NVRAM resetting jumper. I guess this is the RTCNVRAM chip or the BIOS EPROM but it makes no difference as I don't think there would be a replacement available. Have asked eBUYER for a replacement MB but they quote a 45% restocking fee as the MB was bought in May 2006. Will go with this if they cough up for a replacement. Trust the easy one to be the oldest! Advice from members certainly helped.
Cheers
peahouse05
 
Thanks Abarbarian
Saved that one and hoping for a replacement MB from eBuyer for the other. Also learned a lot about BIOS, booting, etc.
Cheers
peahouse05:nod:
 
Hi All
K8N4G MB went back to eBuyer Monday - got an email Tuesday 'unable to replicate fault'. MB arrived today - tried it with different PSU, CPU, RAM and HDD, but same fault after POST - CHECKSUM BAD and DATE AND TIME INCORRECT. Repeated attempts to correct date and time but F10 does not work and date reverts to 1/11/2006. Checked battery - healthy at 3.02V and also tried resetting BIOS RAM. This is definately a MB failure of the RTC/NVRAM chip, but do I want to phone eBuyer at 1GBP per minute to discuss the matter? To answer my own question NO! Can anyone please recommend a better MB with socket 754?
Thanks in advance
peahouse05:wall:
 
... are you up for some more reading ?

http://www.bioscentral.com/


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