PC Booting issues

sancho

Have put a working 'boot' drive into the machine and I get the same error. I can hear the drive spin up, but still hangs on that post screen

Is safe to assume that it's definitely the hardware on the server? The CPU fan still seems to be sporadic in whether it comes on or not.

What would be the next course of action? The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-D510UD which came with the Atom processor already installed, it says in the documentation to not try and remove the processor.

Is it another mobo/processor needed? In which case can anyone recommend a suitable replacement - cheapish (and quickish) can't watch any films or TV shows while it's missing

Toxteth_OGrady

For the sake of a couple of quid might be worth trying a new cmos battery.

btw - did you remember to put the clear cmos jumper back to the correct position?

sancho

I didn't touch any jumpers, couldn't find them. In the manual it says to clear it you just need to remove it for at least a minute, then replace

Am going to put my desktop back together and try to boot to whs using that drive.

sancho

Hard drive boots fine on another machine, does say that it installed an important update which required an automatic restart. Could that have messed something up hardware wise?

S0litaire

The Update may have messed something up...
But you can't fix that till you can get it to boot...

But check the CPU fan, make sure the fan is free of dust and plugged in correctly.
The atom's are usually fixed to the Mobo's so you can't remove them.

The battery sounds fine (it would squeal about checking the system time if it was a CMOS problem!!)

first thing is to remove ALL attached devices (including CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives) so it's only the RAM / Hard Drive and Monitor attached
power up and see how far it goes...

Next get a bootable CD (Something like an Ubuntu LIVE-CD) and run Memtest for a good hour or so.

Then boot using the Live CD and see how far the boot goes..

But it's sounding like the RAM maybe borked!... since it's failing at that point.

S0litaire

Oh!

If you CAN get into the BIOS make sure you select it to run a full "POST" (Power On Self Test) when you power on.
It might give you a bit more info as to where it's failing...

scheming_gypsy

To be honest, i doubt it's anything to do with the update. The update will be a Windows update and you're not even getting as far as trying to boot the operating system, so far too soon for any updates to take effect.

sancho

Just CPU (obviously), RAM and vga cable gets the above screen. As does CPU, RAM, hdd and keyboard.

Still won't let me enter BIOS, or select a boot device (for memtest) as scheming_gypsy mentioned it isn't getting that far.

It only has 1gb RAM and I was thinking of upgrading that anyway. I'll buy another stick, try that and then I suppose the only option is a new mobo and CPU

What could be the cause? Don't think we have had a power cut/surge, and It's attached to a surge protector multi socket anyway. I have a total of 6 drives in there with a 350w psu, 5 of the drives are 5400 Eco drives though so wouldn't have thought it would be a massive drain. There's only 1 large case fan.

Plus It's a *tiny* itx board in a regular desktop case so there should be a fair amount of airflow. It is on 24/7, but I though that's what It's meant for

S0litaire

you said the fan is sticky (not always running)
With that power load the heat, might have cooked the CPU/Motherboard when the fan failed.
Depends on the case and where the device was stored!

My tiny Nvidia ION ITX board is in a huge HP Pavilion tower! lol

But it lets me stick it anywhere and it'll have enough air around it to keep cool (the fan's usually unplugged, but plugged it in when the weather starts to stay hot). I've only got a Laptop HDD in the case with a Micro PSU, so heat build up is next to nothing inside the case.

sancho

Thinking about it the case is in a reasonably hot room, in between a bed and a wardrobe, with a printer on top...

It makes sense that the fan failed and the thing cooked. Should I look into more cooling based on what I have in there? I may move the case somewhere else too, or at least take the printer off!! Any recommendations?

I have bought some more RAM, but like I said I wanted to have more anyway, will probably end up looking for a new board, again, any recommendations?

At least in theory all of my drives are safe.

Is it worth trying to send the mobo back to ebuyer for a refund?