About to drive me nuts....A computer won't POST a screen!

Dyre Straits

Since getting our Comcast broadband connection, I've been the one responsible for getting the computers at our house connected to the network...and thus to the Internet.

There's one computer that's been stubborn to connect to the network: My daughter-in-law's.

I checked all the cables and connections I could locate and it just didn't have a good connection to the router for some reason.

So, I shut it down and brought the case into my office (where the router is setup) and hooked up a spare mouse, keyboard, and monitor to it. That was over an hour ago! It refuses to POST!

I've even popped out her video card and installed another one that I KNOW works. Still no go.

So, I tried a 2nd monitor. Still no go!

I've tried all the tricks of the trade I'm familiar with (Hold down INSERT KEY, etc) and it simply refuses to bring up a screen.

Her computer is rather out-dated and is a PIII-550 -- if I'm not mistaken. I remember back then having a real time getting that first screen. But, this is getting to be ridiculous!

Anyone with some ideas?

Honest, all I did was move the case from upstairs down to my office. Very simple little task.

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Sargentwhitey

Does it have onboard video? It's been a bit of a bitch for me to get computers with integrated video to POST...

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e v o

Try the bare minimum

cpu, hd, and 1 stick of ram, unplug the rest.

Can you clear the CMOS on that? If so try that. (little flat battery)

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Tipstaff

I would also try to remove and reseat all pci/agp cards and memory just incase they got shifted, or came lose when you were moving it.

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The_Neon_Cowboy

Reseat Everything!

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Dyre Straits

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Almost all of these were tried before posting the problem. The only thing not done was to remove the CMOS battery and reset the board.

I did have an old Slot 1 board from the past that I used and got video immediately with that board. However, it's old enough that it won't support her PIII 550 Slot 1 CPU. At this point, she's most likely going to go ahead and upgrade. It's LONG past due!

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Dyre Straits

No, there's no onboard video. From past experience, though, I did have systems that took several restarts before the video would come up. I remember one system that sometimes would take up to 20 restarts before it would finally work. I've gone WAY past 20 times on this one.

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riles9262

I'd start swapping parts if possible then until you find the one responsible. It may just be easier to upgrade like you mentioned though

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A beer a day keeps the doctor away.

PangingJr

something like this has happened to me in the past when we used the old BX chipset motherborads.
many time that the guy who i had told him to clean the computers would comes up with things like this on 1-2 computers...
take out the CMOS battery to erase it, put the battery back and the computers would boot. sometimes remove and reinsert the main ATX power sockets at the borads would also help the booting problem.

Dyre Straits

Well, here's the latest on this issue:

I took that motherboard out of that case, put it into another case, put different memory, tried two different video cards -- that I know are good -- and tried to get it to boot. Nada! I even tried it without any of the HDs or IDE power cables connected....just to see if it would POST. Still nothing.

I've decided that it's probably a dead board and definitely not worth spending much more time on it.

What I've done for her is -- as a surprise -- put a recently purchased 478-based VIA board in it with a Celeron 2.6 CPU. The computer is back at her desk and working great.

One thing, though, that had to be done was to Repair her Windows Installation. It was damaged. I'm thinking that there must have been a power surge -- we've had LOTS of lightning this year -- and made something fragile enough that my moving the case jarred it just enough to break whatever connection was damaged. Of course, that's just conjecture, but, a very likely one.

Thanks again for all the replies. When I run out of ideas, you guys are the best at offering alternatives.

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