m598mr boot trouble

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Downey
  • Start date Start date
S

Scott Downey

Bios screen comes up and posts fine. Then screen goes black and monitor
activity light goes dead.
At this point if I press any key it will finish booting fine. This happpens
every time. I have flashed every known bios and reset everything I can think
of.
Any ideas or do I just have to live with it.
..
 
Scott said:
Bios screen comes up and posts fine. Then screen goes black and monitor
activity light goes dead.
At this point if I press any key it will finish booting fine. This happpens
every time. I have flashed every known bios and reset everything I can think
of.
Any ideas or do I just have to live with it.
.
Click to expand...
I assume you are booting into Windows after you "Press any key?" It
sounds like you have a video driver problem if this is the case. Try
booting into Safe Mode if you can, and see if the problem occurs. You
might also see what happens with a different video card.

Ken
 
Yes booting into windows.
But this occurs even if no harddrive is present and you are booting from a
diskette.
Any morei deas will be appreciated
 
Scott said:
Yes booting into windows.
But this occurs even if no harddrive is present and you are booting from a
diskette.
Any morei deas will be appreciated
Click to expand...
If that is the case, then it is not a driver for Windows, but there is
still a problem with the video. Two things you might try:
Set your CMOS settings to DEFAULT values or SETUP values. There
might be some bizarre setting that is causing the problem, particularly
if the video card is using MB RAM for video.
The other thing is the video card or the monitor is not able to display
the resolution being displayed at the time of the failure. There is a
resolution during boot that is NOT 640 x 480 that is displayed
momentarily and either the card or the monitor might not be able to
display it. Swapping the video card or monitor should tell you which.

Ken
 
1. Turn off the monitor
2. Boot the system
3. Wait for a minute or so - long enough for the boot process to happen
4. Turn on the monitor

You should see a picture at this point, at least if booted from a floppy
disk.

It sounds like the video card is switching to a mode that the monitor
doesn't like, which shouldn't happen when booting from floppy, or that the
monitor is going defective.
 
BTW, Does this mainboard had onboard video AND a video card?

Some boards will let you use both and it's possible the computer is
switching to the other card.

Check which card the PC initializes first in the BIOS settings. Maybe
disable onboard if you can.
 
yes this board has onboard video and sound. I am running a PCI video card in
this system and I disabled the onboard video in the bios.
However, when the onboard video is the only one present and enabled in the
system it still reacts the same way.
If you switch monitors it reacts the same way.
It acts like it is dropping all video output, the monitor light goes yellow.
Pressing any key starts it back up again.
 
Two video cards do this. Different monitors do this. It does this when
booted off the hard drive or floppy disk.

....at this point I'd suspect that something is flakey on the mainboard, or
the CMOS is configured oddly.

- Does the mainboard check to ensure the CPU fan is running? Could be
shutting down because of this.
- Do you have any power saving modes turned on in the BIOS? Could be set for
1 minute.
- Is this an ATX system? Are you using the FRONT power button to start the
PC or a powerbar or rear switch?

Only thing I can suggest doing is pulling ALL parts you don't need and see
if the same thing happens. Maybe flash the BIOS with whatever is on the
manufacturers site and then reset the CMOS battery.
 
The fan idea is interesting.
My fan plugs into the power supply plug. There is a 3 prong fan plug on the
motherboard. I doubt Pcchips was that sophisticated to see if the fan was
turning and if it was not, to halt on a boot up. I can try that.
It is an AT system and we press the main button on the front panel to start
up. There is an ATX power plug as well. I tried an ATX power supply but made
no difference.
I will check out the power savings modes in the bios.
I have tried 4 different bioses for this pcchips board and it did not help.
It is a tough problem.
 
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