[RESOLVED] can't boot past system info screen

[Jonnybumkin]

I am working on a second machine. I have little or no info on this one. I had several different machines but sold them just before an intended move that fell through. Now I am down to only the one in my signature and the one I am working on. The one that wont boot is a second (or third) hand home built machine that according to the screen that it hangs on is running an AMD Athlon processor at 1000MHz with a 30G hdd. It has a Liton DVD-ROM drive and one floppy.
When we were using this machine, it was working pretty much ok. We were running Win ME. It would occasionally hang here and have to be rebooted, but it was seldom turned off so it was not much of a problem. I put Win XP on it when I sold it.
After the sale, the buyer complained of having multiple problems including hang on boot. He took it to a friend of his who for some reason pulled all of the screws out of the motherboard. When I refunded his money and took back the machine, many of the parts seem to be messed with and one of the cd drives is missing, the screws for the motherboard are missing, etc. I replaced the screws and unhooked the dvd drive and floppy after trying multiple times to boot. I pulled the hd out and put it in an external USB enclosure and checked it with my working machine. It seemed to check out. I unplugged the power, removed the mobo battery, and held the power button. I removed and replaced the memory sticks (which were in the wrong place. The larger one was second so the memory showed 256 first and after switching them it showed 384). All of this has had absolutely no effect. The boot screen comes up and shows the bios info, detects the hardware, allows for entry into setup or continue, then goes to the system info screen and hangs. Is this a software (I dont think it is reaching the hd) or hardware problem? If it is hardware is there anyway to pinpoint it? Mobo? How do I identify what mobo to buy that will work with the processor I have?

[lgbpop]

How do I identify what mobo to buy that will work with the processor I have?

Try here:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...0_3734,00.html

I'd suspect the power supply first. If it's around the same vintage as the rest of that configuration it's probably a 250-300W range as a guess, and older PSUs do lose some of their power simply through heat degradation over time. You ARE getting activity, but your system is "too pooped to pop" so to speak. The other hardware concern would be leaking/bulging capacitors on the motherboard. Any sign of those puts your mobo into terminal condition sooner or later.

Even if all your hardware is perfect, ME was much more suited for that system, and that's not saying much. 2000 will also work much better on that hardware and it still has extended M$ support. XP must be a slug on that system. Food for thought.

[Jonnybumkin]

Power supply is AOpen 250W. Mobo ASUS A7A266 looks fine on visual inspection. RADON RV100 SD32M video. SoundBlasterLive SB0060 audio. Western Digital WD300 30G hd. Liteon DVD-ROM.


The only os I have on disk is XP. Me and 2Kpro got sold prior to the intended move.

[lgbpop]

I'd recommend springing for a good-branded (Thermaltake, Tagan, Xion, etc.) PSU of 450W or more and see if that cures things. If so, great; if it doesn't, you can at least use the PSU in a newer system.

In the chance that it IS an OS problem, insert the XP CD, reboot and go to the Repair Console; perform the following two commands and see if it corrects things:

•fixboot
•fixmbr

[Jonnybumkin]

Well I still can't seem to get this thing to work. My local shop suggested that the cpu may be bad so I changed mine out with one of theirs....twice. Both resulted in a blank screen on the monitor. The only thing new was the fact that I have to hold the power button in until the computer shuts off with the other processors, but with the one before and again after the swaps I can just press and release the power button to get it to shut off. Switching the cpu seemed to me an easier way to test the comp instead of spending much more on a new ps. I did just get a used one in so I will try it. Does any of this make sense? I was hoping that the pics may help.
This is all that I get with my original cpu. Neither of the used swaps even made it this far according to the monitor, but as mentioned, the machine seemed to shut down as if it had booted. My cpu is an Athlon, but the swaps were Duron I believe. Also note that the floppy drive fails to initiate. Is this perhaps a symptom of something else? I am trying to be as cheap as possible here so I really would like to fix this machine without having to buy any costly parts. (the cpu was 15 bucks and free swap the second time) Thanks


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I just tried the only used power supply that I have and got results similar to the cpu swap. The monitor stayed blank and I had to hold the power button in to get the machine to shut down. The ps worked in the tower it was in, but the tower is older than the one I am working on so perhaps this one is not enough power either? I will keep messing with it until we find an answer here or I break it beyond fixing! Thanks for your help

[Train]

The 1003B version of the BIOS may not have recognized the other cpus.

Thought so, here are the cpus and the bios version needed to use it.
http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/c...s&model=A7A266

[Jonnybumkin]

Thanks Train for the Bios info. I will definately use these links in the future. It also explains why the used cpu doesn't help. I can't get to any point to update the Bios as the two screens in the pics above are all I see except for the 'setup' menu. I can't boot from floppy as the floppy fails in post. Tried another floppy drive with same results. The second pic shown is where the machine stops every time.

Igbpop, I just pulled the 300w ps from a working machine and tried it. No change.

[Train]

Sounds like the IDE controller failed to me.

Lost 3 ASUS a7V mobos that way.

Upgrade time it looks like.

[Jonnybumkin]

Aww shucks! Well it will be good for scavenging parts from to build another. I was thinking it may be the mobo at the start. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

[Train]

Wish I could have done better.