BIOS issues

[Cyleightor]

OK, so in the 2 minutes I walked away from my PC tonight, I came back to a black screen. Hit the usual buttons, alt-tab, alt-ctrl-del, Alt-F4, nadda. Pop the power button for a restart....and nothing. All the fans started, all the drives were spinning, but the computer did <nothing>. I can't even get to BIOS as it freezes just as it starts to POST, when it actually makes it that far. Normally the monitor never comes on, only got to the start of POST 2 times out of 80 or so tries in tinkering. I'll list everything I've done so far....

Jumped the reset pins AND completely removed/tested BIOS battery (reads 3v)

Took the system to bare bones, cpu power, mobo power, 1 ram chip...nada

Tested every lead in the power supply, all pins read appropriate in the 20 and 4 pin mobo connectors (3.3v, 5v, or 12v, and of course -12v)

Disconnected all USB devices, replaced keyboard and mouse with ps/2 variants

Gave the mobo a once-over for blown caps, resistors, etc...nothing <visibly> blown or scorched

The 2 times i was able to get something to appear was after i didn't touch it for an hour or so. those times, when the POST got ready to start I hit <del> to enter setup for the bios. one time it froze immediately, the other time it went 1 screen further and stated the bios was reset to factory defaults, then froze.

does anyone have a clue as to what else could cause this?

thanks

edit: also, i don't get any bios error beeps, nor the usual beep when POST starts

[marcothy]

Its not posting it sounds like.

What motherboard are you using btw?

First suggestion, if you have different ram you can put in, try that. If you have other ram slots, try placing the ram there instead.

I have come across this same exact issue, and it is/was due to the circuitry issue Asus boards have with the ram modules causing the MB to be a paperweight.

The trouble with the problem if its the MB is if you don't have additional slots, or if they are all bad, then you can't really troubleshoot the board unless you have the tools to diagnose the board itself.

Test different ram, test different memory slots if available.

Edit: I get really damn incoherrent when I am multi-tasking...

[Constantine]

I agree with Marcothy, I had this happen and did what you did and it turned out all my ram went bad. I consider myself lucky since ram is cheap, my motherboard, not so much. What type of ram do you have. Look at newegg and see if there are alot of bad customer reviews about it.

[Cyleightor]

Only have 2 ram chips, tried both in all 4 sots I have available, with the same results. And the mobo is an ASUS p4v800d-x. the ram is kingston, and everything i get is from newegg.com and had good customer comments.

going to continue searching around to see if any new problems have cropped up with either though. unfortunately neither newegg nor mwave carry my mobo anymore, but i did find some on ebay for 20 bucks new in box. might just give that a try.

to think of it...a few years ago (in a diff PC), i had a ram cook as soon as i put it in. upon starting up, the bios beeped an error about no ram. but i'm not getting any beeps at all. is that saying anything?

[marcothy]

If you have another computer where you can use that ram in it, you can test to make sure the rams ok. If the rams fine, it is most likely one of the following:


Memory slots on MB ( no ram no post)
CPU (no cpu no post)
Video card (if no onboard display is available, and no display adapter, I am pretty sure that won't post)
Bad Power Supply (check and make sure all rails are connected - 4/6 pins and 20-24 pins)
If it were your HD, I am pretty sure the PC will still POST but will give a warning.

[Cyleightor]

Think i'm just gonna call it a dead subject. The mobo itself was just a stopgap that allowed me to use my P4 CPU but still use a 9400 vidcard. Just gonna get myself a duo, new mobo, memory, and PSU. A replacement mobo will run me around a hundred bucks and I'll end up replacing it within a year again anyhow. This way I only spend about 350 and start fresh and up to date.

Thanks for the assist, I'd have to say this is the worst problem I've ever had with a pc, made worse because I can't pinpoint the issue =(

[marcothy]

When I had the same issue, I replaced the ram in different slots, worked fine for a while then those modules went bad. Had no way to know for sure that was the issue. But I replaced the MOBO and all has been well since April of this year.

Reason #1 I won't buy another ASUS mother board...EVER. They have a known circuitry issue, and rather recall existing items, they expect you to buy their shitty, lame ass hardware, then ship it to them to fix, and send back putting you out for weeks.

I told them they were welcome to use their own ass for heatsinks and I'd ship them their MOBO back as a present to be used as a paperweight, and I went back to using Gigabyte.

I used them before, and now, I will always use them. Honestly, they build the most stable MOBO's I have used.

Long story short, don't buy an ASUS-unless you want to risk the same problem on a new MOBO.

[Demolition]

I use MSI and havent had any problems with them yet in 2 PC builds so i am a happy camper where i sit atm :)

Never really used ASUS before but i will definitely keep this thread in mind and decide against trying them out :)