Power supply problem?? Need input, bad!

  • Thread starter Thread starter DemoDisk
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DemoDisk

This is about the Old Homebuild that boots and runs normally -- but you
have to wait 8 - 10 MINUTES first. A few good people offered advice and
I followed it, but no luck yet.

The thing is, NOTHING happens with this Celeron 400 homebuild for many
minutes. The fans run, but the FDD, HDD, and keyboard show no life or
activity and are silent. Then there's a beep, the hard drive spins up,
etc. and *voilà* it's running like it didn't know anything was wrong.
The DOS routine on the monitor stops to tell me the CPU "is corrupted or
has been changed," meaning the BIOS went to its default settings
(300MHz; A,C,SCSI sequence). But it runs.

I thought maybe I corrupted the BIOS in an aborted visit to a site that
had an updated version. But if that were true, the PC wouldn't boot *at
all* right?

Well, boot times grew longer until it really looked done for. I tore
everything down to the bare case, put back the minimum for booting.
Nothing. Found that I'd inverted the floppy connector and fixed it.
Still wouldn't get past the fans-whirring stage. The monitor (back to
the old Hitachi CRT) just blinked at me.

The system's plugged directly to a different wall socket now, and I'm
able to post this because it finally decided to boot. I just dared it to
live and went to get dinner so I don't know *when* it booted, but after
I powered down and re-assembled, it took a good THIRTY minutes.

So -- if you're still reading, bless you -- while I can still get
online, does this look like a problem with the power supply? Scott
Mueller's book speaks of a Power_Good signal that the PS sends to the
motherboard, meaning that the power supply can "maintain outputs
within regulation tolerance...The system will not restart until the
Power_Good signal returns."

Sound likely?? Or bad BIOS? I don't have much confidence that it's the
different wall socket.

JM (system specs below, HTH)

ABIT BM6 motherboard
256MB ram
20GB IBM HDD
3DFX 3500 AGP TV/FM video card
TB Quadzilla 2 soundcard
ASUS 40X CDROM
Windows 98SE
 
The fact that this system does boot suggests power supply is
not a likely susepct. Of course if it takes 8-10 minutes
because it keeps restarting the boot, then PSU system is
suspect.

What happens when you press (I think it is) F8 for step by
step operation. What exactly does this type booting report?

Of course, you could remove all kinds of peripherals to see
what might be slowing the booting. And you could try an "all
days" worth of this and that. But instead, what does the
system say it causing the problems - using F8 and (once it is
finally booted) the system (event) logs and Device Manager?

What happens when you only step by step boot to DOS? Againg
information that tells us other new facts.

Notice the trend. First get and provide every piece of
available information. How does step by step boot work AND
what the system logs and Device Manager report are important
facts. When those numbers are not useful to you, then they
are useful to those replying to your posts.
 
DemoDisk said:
This is about the Old Homebuild that boots and runs normally -- but you
have to wait 8 - 10 MINUTES first. A few good people offered advice and
I followed it, but no luck yet.

The thing is, NOTHING happens with this Celeron 400 homebuild for many
minutes. The fans run, but the FDD, HDD, and keyboard show no life or
activity and are silent. Then there's a beep, the hard drive spins up,
etc. and *voilà* it's running like it didn't know anything was wrong.
The DOS routine on the monitor stops to tell me the CPU "is corrupted or
has been changed," meaning the BIOS went to its default settings
(300MHz; A,C,SCSI sequence). But it runs.

I thought maybe I corrupted the BIOS in an aborted visit to a site that
had an updated version. But if that were true, the PC wouldn't boot *at
all* right?

Well, boot times grew longer until it really looked done for. I tore
everything down to the bare case, put back the minimum for booting.
Nothing. Found that I'd inverted the floppy connector and fixed it.
Still wouldn't get past the fans-whirring stage. The monitor (back to
the old Hitachi CRT) just blinked at me.

The system's plugged directly to a different wall socket now, and I'm
able to post this because it finally decided to boot. I just dared it to
live and went to get dinner so I don't know *when* it booted, but after
I powered down and re-assembled, it took a good THIRTY minutes.

So -- if you're still reading, bless you -- while I can still get
online, does this look like a problem with the power supply? Scott
Mueller's book speaks of a Power_Good signal that the PS sends to the
motherboard, meaning that the power supply can "maintain outputs
within regulation tolerance...The system will not restart until the
Power_Good signal returns."

Sound likely?? Or bad BIOS? I don't have much confidence that it's the
different wall socket.

JM (system specs below, HTH)

ABIT BM6 motherboard
256MB ram
20GB IBM HDD
3DFX 3500 AGP TV/FM video card
TB Quadzilla 2 soundcard
ASUS 40X CDROM
Windows 98SE
Click to expand...

Remove the soundcard and the cd rom drive, then try and reboot.

See if that reduces the time needed.

If it doesn't, unplug the power supply, take out mobo battery, jumper the
cmos reset pins, put battery back in, plug in power supply, reboot, same
thing how long now to boot.

Anything more advanced, someone like kony or philo may hopefully help you.
 
This is about the Old Homebuild that boots and runs normally -- but you
have to wait 8 - 10 MINUTES first. A few good people offered advice and
I followed it, but no luck yet.

The thing is, NOTHING happens with this Celeron 400 homebuild for many
minutes. The fans run, but the FDD, HDD, and keyboard show no life or
activity and are silent. Then there's a beep, the hard drive spins up,
etc. and *voilà* it's running like it didn't know anything was wrong.
The DOS routine on the monitor stops to tell me the CPU "is corrupted or
has been changed," meaning the BIOS went to its default settings
(300MHz; A,C,SCSI sequence). But it runs.

I thought maybe I corrupted the BIOS in an aborted visit to a site that
had an updated version. But if that were true, the PC wouldn't boot *at
all* right?

Well, boot times grew longer until it really looked done for. I tore
everything down to the bare case, put back the minimum for booting.
Nothing. Found that I'd inverted the floppy connector and fixed it.
Still wouldn't get past the fans-whirring stage. The monitor (back to
the old Hitachi CRT) just blinked at me.

The system's plugged directly to a different wall socket now, and I'm
able to post this because it finally decided to boot. I just dared it to
live and went to get dinner so I don't know *when* it booted, but after
I powered down and re-assembled, it took a good THIRTY minutes.

So -- if you're still reading, bless you -- while I can still get
online, does this look like a problem with the power supply? Scott
Mueller's book speaks of a Power_Good signal that the PS sends to the
motherboard, meaning that the power supply can "maintain outputs
within regulation tolerance...The system will not restart until the
Power_Good signal returns."

Sound likely?? Or bad BIOS? I don't have much confidence that it's the
different wall socket.

JM (system specs below, HTH)

ABIT BM6 motherboard
256MB ram
20GB IBM HDD
3DFX 3500 AGP TV/FM video card
TB Quadzilla 2 soundcard
ASUS 40X CDROM
Windows 98SE
Click to expand...

Make a DOS boot floppy then set bios to boot to floppy
first. Then power off and unplug ALL drives from
motherboard except that floppy... see if it still hesitates
with only the floppy to boot to.

This problem is most often one of having wrong boot devices
set in bios, or some type of drive problem whether it be a
partially bad cable, misjumpered drives or other drive
problem(s). If it boots to floppy ok then try adding back
one drive at a time, alone and jumpered as single (for WD
and some others) or Master (for most). Add back drives in
turn afterwards.

This usually isn't a power supply problem. If all else
fails then strip system down to minimal components and try
clearing CMOS.
 
DemoDisk said:
This is about the Old Homebuild that boots and runs normally -- but you
have to wait 8 - 10 MINUTES first.
Click to expand...

< snipped my own post >

Thanks w_tom, Morituri-|-Max, and Kony. I've kind of been taking stabs
in the dark and posting wildly, so it's good to get coherent advice.
I'll follow it and post back, but it may take a while.

Flashed the BIOS from Abit's own site this evening; never done that
before. System booted normally, but we'll see how it behaves in the
morning booting up cold.

JM
 
This is about the Old Homebuild that boots and runs normally -- but you
have to wait 8 - 10 MINUTES first. A few good people offered advice and
I followed it, but no luck yet.

The thing is, NOTHING happens with this Celeron 400 homebuild for many
minutes. The fans run, but the FDD, HDD, and keyboard show no life or
activity and are silent. Then there's a beep, the hard drive spins up,
etc. and *voilà* it's running like it didn't know anything was wrong.
The DOS routine on the monitor stops to tell me the CPU "is corrupted or
has been changed," meaning the BIOS went to its default settings
(300MHz; A,C,SCSI sequence). But it runs.

I thought maybe I corrupted the BIOS in an aborted visit to a site that
had an updated version. But if that were true, the PC wouldn't boot *at
all* right?

Well, boot times grew longer until it really looked done for. I tore
everything down to the bare case, put back the minimum for booting.
Nothing. Found that I'd inverted the floppy connector and fixed it.
Still wouldn't get past the fans-whirring stage. The monitor (back to
the old Hitachi CRT) just blinked at me.

The system's plugged directly to a different wall socket now, and I'm
able to post this because it finally decided to boot. I just dared it to
live and went to get dinner so I don't know *when* it booted, but after
I powered down and re-assembled, it took a good THIRTY minutes.

So -- if you're still reading, bless you -- while I can still get
online, does this look like a problem with the power supply? Scott
Mueller's book speaks of a Power_Good signal that the PS sends to the
motherboard, meaning that the power supply can "maintain outputs
within regulation tolerance...The system will not restart until the
Power_Good signal returns."

Sound likely??
Click to expand...

Instead of wondering, why don't you just measure it? If for some
reason Power-Good takes a while to go high, it would cause what you're
experiencing.
 
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