Hello, just following up. Fiddling around I remember the one of you (infact its was Jodi and Warren) that mentioned the BIOS beeping the speaker when it couldn't find a video card. Well that was the clue, I hadn't seat the video card quite properly when i put it back together. Once reseated everything booted fine! yeah yeah yeah. So the problem was probably a screwed BIOS that needed resetting by removing the battery. Cleaning the insides probably helped and the other clues you guys passed on helped me to diagnose a problem of my own making :) So thanks again for your contributions. The other benefit was I turned my server into a desktop using Xubuntu so I could get back onto the internet. Its pretty tidiy actually so I think I'll keep using it. Cheers On 22/07/06, Chris O'Halloran <cmoman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
thanks for the responses Well today, I pulled my machine apart into every last bit, including removing the BIOS battery and the motherboard from the case. With a set of special brushes connected to a vacuum cleaner I removed almost every trace of dust in my machine and reassembled it.
I then put only the graphics card and ethernet card back into the PCI bus on the machine and switch on the power. This time, I didn't see a thing on the screen but could tell from the noises the machine was making, it was booting up okay.
I then got another machine going on my lan and found I could ping the faulty machines ethernet card. I trieed SSH'ing to but so far I have not been able to get past the password checks. I am not sure if this is because of the way I've configured the ssh server on the faulty machine or if its part of the present failures that I am having.
So it appears that the motherboard may be okay but the fault is now manifesting itself as a graphics issue. Or it have resolved the first fault but created another. I was quite careful to use an antistatic strap the whole time so I hope I haven't damaged the nVidia card.
Thanks again for your help.
On 21/07/06, Gavin Denby <redhat(a)ihug.co.nz> wrote:
As a Tech, I must say ... Your right in your assumptions
The Flash bios is the Video card (yes video cards have their own bootstrap) starting
then the Motherboard and Bios should take over and are not
Pulling cards is the next step, just in case, but right now a motherboard is looking pretty questionable, The supply is unlikely in this case, and your diagnostics look sound. Its looking like money will need to be spent
Chris O'Halloran wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions.
On rereading my email, perhaps I wasn't clear. My computer is not actually getting to the BIOS screen, it's only doing the quick text display that the nVidia graphics chip flashs just before the motherboard bios takes over.
Power supply is a good suggestion but no, nothing untoward sounding and the CD and DVD roms operate so the 12V rail is probably good.
I'll test the supply to the harddrives but I am still suspcious that the BIOS screens aren't coming up.
Thanks for the suggestions.
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