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#1
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Troublesome PC - Power on and Boot Issues
Hi all,
I have the following issues of my PC. ** Powering (or Turning on) the PC can sometimes require switching the machine on and off 2 times before reaching the BIOS Screen. ** Bios screen has displayed an error message stating that an incorrect CPU speed is being used, BUT I have been running the PC at the same speed for over 3 years. ** The CPU normally runs at a speed of 1733 MHZ, although I have reduced it to 1110 GHZ in order to function. ** Within the past month I have been hearing a noise within the case of my PC, although I have dusted, vacuumed and used an electronic spray to clean the insides, and have eliminated this issue. PLEASE NOTE: A solution which I do not want is to buy a new system. I am quite content with this system. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The following are my PC Specifications Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2100+ Motherboard: ASUS A7V8X RAM: 512MB Ram |
#2
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Troublesome PC - Power on and Boot Issues
Paul L wrote:
Hi all, I have the following issues of my PC. ** Powering (or Turning on) the PC can sometimes require switching the machine on and off 2 times before reaching the BIOS Screen. ** Bios screen has displayed an error message stating that an incorrect CPU speed is being used, BUT I have been running the PC at the same speed for over 3 years. ** The CPU normally runs at a speed of 1733 MHZ, although I have reduced it to 1110 GHZ in order to function. ** Within the past month I have been hearing a noise within the case of my PC, although I have dusted, vacuumed and used an electronic spray to clean the insides, and have eliminated this issue. PLEASE NOTE: A solution which I do not want is to buy a new system. I am quite content with this system. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The following are my PC Specifications Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2100+ Motherboard: ASUS A7V8X RAM: 512MB Ram The sound you're hearing, could be coming from the power supply. I had an Antec power supply (430W?) connected to an A7N8X-E, and I could hear an "arcing" sound coming from the power supply, just during initial power up. Once the system started, the arcing stopped. Eventually, it got bad enough, that the computer crashed in the BIOS. I opened up the power supply, to find four small leaking capacitors on the output stage of the supply. The arcing was probably coming from one of those. I bought a replacement supply, and all was fine. Like my motherboard, your motherboard runs Vcore from the 5V rail. There is no ATX12V 2x2 power connector on your board. The power supply should have a relatively strong 5V rating, to help with that. (So looking at the label of the supply, 5V @ 25A would give you some margin.) +3.3V @ 30A, +5V @ 28A, +12V1 @ 14A, +12V2 @ 15A, -12V @ 0.5A, +5VSB @ 2A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104935 It is easy to find supplies which would be a bad match for your system. This one is particularly weak on +5V. This might make a good supply for a Core2 Duo system, but not for a system like yours. (The reason this one is weird, is because it is fanless. It is a high efficiency design, so there isn't a lot of waste heat. But there isn't a lot of capacity on the output, either.) +3.3V @ 20A, +5V @ 14A, +12V1 @ 14A, +12V2 @ 13A, -12V @ 0.5A, +5VSB @ 2.5A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104035 So perhaps your problem is related to the power supply, which is a frequent failure point in PCs. A new supply cost me about $60, because I wanted something I could continue to use. I'm using that replacement supply right now, on the machine I'm typing on. If the existing power supply is relatively new, it could have a warranty. In my case, the supply was old enough, I just opened it up for a peek, without intending to take it all apart and try and fix it. I try not to poke around inside there, because on the primary side, there is high voltage DC rectified from the AC mains. And both the joule rating and the voltage involved, is scary enough, to keep me from getting too curious. But I was able to see the orange-brown deposits on top of four of the capacitors. You can see four leaking in this one. This is not the same as my supply. You can see at least one other capacitor, where the top of the cap is beginning to bulge. The top should be flat on each one. Bulging means pressure is building inside. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...4/PSU_Caps.jpg An Asus motherboard will drop the FSB speed, in response to a crash. They call it "overclocking recovery", but it can even happen to a computer running at stock speed, that crashes for some reason. The BIOS returns a number of settings to default (on one of my boards, I have to remember to set the storage interface to the correct setting, before it can boot again). My current, non-Asus motherboard, has a different scheme - when that one is in trouble, I have to press the reset button three times in a row, and then the BIOS resets to defaults. But at least it doesn't do the default thing whenever the mood strikes it. It takes a concerted effort on my part, to make it drop to safe (default) conditions. Good luck, Paul |
#3
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Troublesome PC - Power on and Boot Issues
On Sat, 09 May 2009 02:25:03 GMT, "Paul L"
wrote: Hi all, I have the following issues of my PC. ** Powering (or Turning on) the PC can sometimes require switching the machine on and off 2 times before reaching the BIOS Screen. ** Bios screen has displayed an error message stating that an incorrect CPU speed is being used, BUT I have been running the PC at the same speed for over 3 years. ** The CPU normally runs at a speed of 1733 MHZ, although I have reduced it to 1110 GHZ in order to function. ** Within the past month I have been hearing a noise within the case of my PC, although I have dusted, vacuumed and used an electronic spray to clean the insides, and have eliminated this issue. You need to find the source of that noise. "Probably" a fan failing that needs replaced, though not necessarily related to your present problem. PLEASE NOTE: A solution which I do not want is to buy a new system. I am quite content with this system. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The following are my PC Specifications Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2100+ Motherboard: ASUS A7V8X RAM: 512MB Ram As Paul #2 mentioned, this could be a PSU failure. Examine the board for capacitor failure, and the PSU too if you feel comfortable opening it after lettting it sit for a couple minutes disconnected from AC. If it turns out to be a PSU failure, get one with a high ratio of 5V:12V current, which would typically be one of old, last generation design. I do think it most "likely" that you have a 5V rail capacitor(s) that have failed in your PSU. If you have the skill and a soldering iron it may not take long or be expensive to fix. |
#4
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Troublesome PC - Power on and Boot Issues
Hi Both Paul # 2 and Kony,
Thank you very much for your replies.. Since I have written this post almost a month has past since I have returned to my parents house to use this PC. There are no fan noises since we have cleaned the insides of the PC. My mum claims that the error is still occuring, but I have powered on the PC with no issues at the moment. If I do notice anything tonight though I will proceed to take out my power supply and install an alternate one. Thanks again.. ciao - Paul "kony" wrote in message ... On Sat, 09 May 2009 02:25:03 GMT, "Paul L" wrote: Hi all, I have the following issues of my PC. ** Powering (or Turning on) the PC can sometimes require switching the machine on and off 2 times before reaching the BIOS Screen. ** Bios screen has displayed an error message stating that an incorrect CPU speed is being used, BUT I have been running the PC at the same speed for over 3 years. ** The CPU normally runs at a speed of 1733 MHZ, although I have reduced it to 1110 GHZ in order to function. ** Within the past month I have been hearing a noise within the case of my PC, although I have dusted, vacuumed and used an electronic spray to clean the insides, and have eliminated this issue. You need to find the source of that noise. "Probably" a fan failing that needs replaced, though not necessarily related to your present problem. PLEASE NOTE: A solution which I do not want is to buy a new system. I am quite content with this system. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The following are my PC Specifications Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2100+ Motherboard: ASUS A7V8X RAM: 512MB Ram As Paul #2 mentioned, this could be a PSU failure. Examine the board for capacitor failure, and the PSU too if you feel comfortable opening it after lettting it sit for a couple minutes disconnected from AC. If it turns out to be a PSU failure, get one with a high ratio of 5V:12V current, which would typically be one of old, last generation design. I do think it most "likely" that you have a 5V rail capacitor(s) that have failed in your PSU. If you have the skill and a soldering iron it may not take long or be expensive to fix. |
#5
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Troublesome PC - Power on and Boot Issues
Paul L wrote:
.... snip ... Since I have written this post almost a month has past since I have returned to my parents house to use this PC. Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all irrelevant material. See the following links: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/ (taming google) http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/ (newusers) -- [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) [page]: http://cbfalconer.home.att.net Try the download section. |
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