possible CMOS/BIOS fryup!

[Vchat20]

well, my old computer (the 333MHZ one) is the one with this issue. its been sitiing dormant in my room for almost a month now. if I can fix it, im planning on using it as a linux/win2k/win98 box for both my own personal use and possibly some kinda webserver. here is the issue in detailed form:

Turn on
Gateway Logo comes up
hit TAB to show details of POST
detects CD-ROm and HD
floppy does its startup thing
computer freezes (normally it should beep then start to load win)

now, if I leave it unplugged for like a week, it will do something new.

Turn on
Gateway Logo comes up
hit TAB to show details of POST
detects CD-ROm and HD
floppy does its startup thing
gives an "Invalid System COnfiguration Error".
hit ESC and it coninues to load as normal.

any ideas?

[My95ZR2]

Depending on age, your battery may have gone dead. I've never had it happen personally--Our old 486-DX2 50Mhz has the original BIOS battery in it, and that thing is still alive and kicking today.

Some of the new BIOSes will auto configure, so you may have lost all your settings, and the BIOS uses a generic config to boot the system. If so, have fun setting everything back, and pray it has built in help. If not, play with the settings, there's not too much you can mess up :/

Adam

[Vchat20]

Battery. already thought of it. got a brand new battery in it now and it doesnt help.

[Reznor007]

Remove everything from the system(RAM, drives, PCI cards, etc. leaving only the video card in) then try to boot it. It should then at least give a no RAM error. If it works then add in 1 thing at a time and see if it will actually boot.

[AlphaWolf]

It's probably one of these two things:

A misconfigured option in your CMOS that is being set by the default configuration that isn't compatible with your hardware. If this is the case, go into your CMOS and keep changing different options until you narrow it down to a specific problem. (this would definitely explain the freezing you had earlier)

Another possibility is that one or more of the peripherals you have installed inside your PC are faulty, try replacing them one by one to see which one is causing the problem.

[Vchat20]

well, so far im stuck. but id like to update on some of the symptoms that I have gotten before, but have overlooked and im getting again.

after leaving it disassembled (PSU disconnected, all drives removed and disconnected) and unplugged for a good 12 hours atleast, i tried it again. now after a bit of tweaking of hardware and moving stuff, I managed to get it into the Linux Install which I was planning on. when it started to load stuff into memory it just shut off immediately. now the strange part is, when it shut off immediately, the Power on it started to flicker constantly on and off. unplug it, let sit for a couple minutes, plg in and try again. symptom free for a couple minutes before the power flickering starts again. any ideas?

also, when the linux install worked, it gave me another error along side the invalid system config error. something about an invlaid CMOS checksum or something.

[My95ZR2]

Was this computer hit by lightning?

Adam

[Lex]

well, so far im stuck. but id like to update on some of the symptoms that I have gotten before, but have overlooked and im getting again.

after leaving it disassembled (PSU disconnected, all drives removed and disconnected) and unplugged for a good 12 hours atleast, i tried it again. now after a bit of tweaking of hardware and moving stuff, I managed to get it into the Linux Install which I was planning on. when it started to load stuff into memory it just shut off immediately. now the strange part is, when it shut off immediately, the Power on it started to flicker constantly on and off. unplug it, let sit for a couple minutes, plg in and try again. symptom free for a couple minutes before the power flickering starts again. any ideas?

also, when the linux install worked, it gave me another error along side the invalid system config error. something about an invlaid CMOS checksum or something.
Try to flash the bios...

[nullroute]

I managed to get it into the Linux Install which I was planning on. when it started to load stuff into memory it just shut off immediately.
I'm taking a bit of a stab in the dark, but if you are trying to install RedHat v6.2 or v7.x (and maybe higher) or Mandrake (not sure what versions) on an AMD K6-2 system, then you will experience this problem. Both distributions were compiled with experimental branches of gcc and both have been known to fail brutally on AMD's 6th gen processors. I'm not sure if either distribution has corrected this problem as I have lost faith in both of them.

EDIT: If this is the case, then I sugguest RedHat v6.0 (the last of a great legacy). Even though it is out of date, it should be easy to install/use and very friendly to a linux newcomer.

[Vchat20]

I dont use an AMD proccessor. just an old Intel Celeron 333MHZ. the computer was never hit by lightning. cuz when a major storm comes I unplug everything. and how am I supposed to flash the BIOS when I cant even get past the POST? I will try to flash it though as occasionally it gets past the POST and lets me boot.

[My95ZR2]

With what you're saying about it acting random...it sounds like it was attacked by an unusual form of electricity. I've know computers that have been hit by lightning that won't boot at first, but after trying many times, they boot up and work perfect.

One crazy question...do you have a copy of any NT OS? One way you can test your memory is to install Windows NT, and see if it throws a stop error. My friend's computer would boot randomly--sometimes it worked fine, other times it didn't. Windows 98 would curropt when it'd install, and he thought it was a faulty harddrive. I tryed to install NT 4, and it threw a stop error. I don't remember it exactly, but I know it was the one that meant you had bad RAM. He replaced it, and XP installed fine!

One other thing, see if you can find someone else with a "crap"-box that'd be willing to let you swap out parts temporarily. You may be able to find the problem that way...

Adam

[Vchat20]

and now nothing comes up on screen during boot-up. nothing at all. i have even tryed removing all the parts except the bare neccessities like PSU and CPU and it still dont do a thing.

[Reznor007]

It's probably a part on the motherboard suffering from heat failure(it will work until it reaches a certain temp, then fail). Turn it on and see if any parts on the motherboard are VERY hot. If any are, replace that part(if you can identify what it is) with the same part, and it may work.

[Vchat20]

well, I see that as a possibility, but unfrotunately this is an OEM mobo from December of '98. I cant see it having an extra feature such as that. of course I might be wrong.

reall,y I would be happy if someone could point out whether I need to get a new mobo or PSU. i wasnt really expecting a fix that didnt require me to buy anything. I was actually expecting to need to buy a new component. if anyeon could narrow it down to something like the PSU or Mobo, that would be appreciated also.

[Reznor007]

When I said that I wasn't talking about a feature, just that certain part isn't working right, causing it to overheat, and eventually fail. Things like this happen often in electronics.

[Vchat20]

well, unless someone here can give me a better explanation, thanks to another board ive aske dthis at, ive narrowed it down to the CMOS/BIOS being bad thus requiring a new mobo. you can read all posts under that topic HERE (http://forum.mm2c.com/viewtopic.php?p=92352#92352).

[Reznor007]

Turn the computer on with the case open, and feel various parts on the motherboard(capacitors, regulators, etc.) to see if any get VERY hot(enough to nearly burn you). If any do, just replace that component, and it may work. Just be careful not to touch 2 different pins or solder points at once.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Turn the computer on with the case open, and feel various parts on the motherboard(capacitors, regulators, etc.) to see if any get VERY hot(enough to nearly burn you). If any do, just replace that component, and it may work. Just be careful not to touch 2 different pins or solder points at once.


The processor may be overheating. Check the heat sink and make sure
the fan is working properly and not dirty.

[RJARRRPCGP]

With what you're saying about it acting random...it sounds like it was attacked by an unusual form of electricity. I've know computers that have been hit by lightning that won't boot at first, but after trying many times, they boot up and work perfect.

One crazy question...do you have a copy of any NT OS? One way you can test your memory is to install Windows NT, and see if it throws a stop error. My friend's computer would boot randomly--sometimes it worked fine, other times it didn't. Windows 98 would curropt when it'd install, and he thought it was a faulty harddrive. I tryed to install NT 4, and it threw a stop error. I don't remember it exactly, but I know it was the one that meant you had bad RAM. He replaced it, and XP installed fine!

One other thing, see if you can find someone else with a "crap"-box that'd be willing to let you swap out parts temporarily. You may be able to find the problem that way...

Adam

The stop error relating to a RAM problem is:

STOP: 0x00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA


Also, I noticed with Windows XP (probably a Windows NT thing)
that with RAM problems, also, file not found errors can occur, even when the file exists on disk. Chkdsk may also wipe out files if the
RAM is faulty, incompatible or with too aggressive timings.

Usually with Windows 95 and Windows 98, with a hardware problem, Windows simply crashes. Usually, you don't get file not found errors.

RAM problems may also cause false bad sector errors.

[My95ZR2]

Yup, that's why I like NT a little better. It stops and gives you a cryptic error message before hosing your system, where 9x/Me just hoses it :p

Adam

[RJARRRPCGP]

Yup, that's why I like NT a little better. It stops and gives you a cryptic error message before hosing your system, where 9x/Me just hoses it :p

Adam

The above was *not* true for me:

I recalled after installing a nForce IDE driver on my Asus A7N266-VM/AA
motherboard, Windows XP Pro crashed after the first reboot, to boot
Windows XP with the nForce IDE driver installed, but after the second reboot, Windows XP Pro decided to run Chkdsk, Chkdsk reported orphaned files all over my hard disk drive and started deleting some files
without warning!!! Because of the above, I lost some of my priceless AVI
files. :ranting:

[My95ZR2]

Couldn't you of brought up the boot menu and told it "Last good know config" ?

Then again, I've done stupid stuff like:

I was cleaning out a partition and fixing it up to be just a swap partition on drive C: I moved (copied, whatever) all the files off it and formatted the drive. I then checked everything to make sure it'd still boot from that drive (WinXP was on D: ). It was kinda late at night, and for some reason Mom was ticked at me, and to me to get my butt in bed. I hit the power switch, watched the computer shutdown, and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up, and mom was ticked again. Seems she couldn't get the computer to boot ??? It dawned on me I had everything set up right, but no boot files to load. I told her it was her own fault for making me shut it down, and she told me I should of know it'd take me that long. Problem was that before I started, I still couldn't boot in, and that's what I was fixing! Anyway, the recovery console wouldn't let me copy the files over, no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up and reinstalled windows. It overwrote SP1 and all the hot fixes I had installed. 3 days after that, I had to system patched up (we have dial-up :barf: )

Adam

[Vchat20]

well, the CPU does have a heatsink but no fan. only fan on the computer is part of the PSU and it is directly forcing air onto the CPU in the proccess. I have pulled out the CPU once before, disassembled, and reassembled, but this all started before that happened.