OT: Boot Problem

[bcorkery]

I built a new computer and the C: drive is on the SATA buss. The only thing on the IDE buss is a Sony DVD burner. When I first built this machine about a month ago, using most of the parts from another computer, there was no problem booting. I'm using the same MSI Mobo & Intel P-IV Processer, DVD and RAM, but I added another Gig up up the RAM to 2. I put in a new 450 watt Antec power source and dropped the whole thing into a rack mount box.

After about a week it started taking a few tries to boot up and each time it seemed to take more tries. This weekend I opened it up, re-seated the cards and RAM. After about a dozen tries it booted and went into the bios and saw that it had defaulted to boot from the IDE buss so I changed it back to SATA. It booted fine on the first try so I closed everything up and mounted the computer in an SKB rack but when I tried to boot again and got the same problem, I didn't even get a POST.

Now I'm thinking the battery on the Mobo is dead and can't hold the settings and defaults back to looking for a drive on the IDE channel and not seeing anything but an empty DVD dirve it does nothing. Am I off base in this? Should it at least go through a POST?

Any suggestions are more than welcome. I'd like to get this up and running for next Sunday's service. We had to go old school this week with the old Mackie board.

Thanks,
Bill

[Mark Stebbeds]

My first two guesses would be PS (even though it's new) or defective boot drive. (even though it may be new)

Mark

[Naturally Digital]

and you can't go wrong to change the battery (especially considering your symptoms).

[Wink0r]

This could also be RAM problems. If you added sticks, try without the new sticks, or juggle sticks.

[DominicPerry]

No POST is usually CPU or MoBo or PSU. But it can be bad RAM. In theory, bad RAM shouldn't do this, but it might. You should always get a POST regardless of what's wrong with the disks, but again, occassionally that's not the case.

Ever-increasing boot attempts tend to be hard disk failure or PSU going out-of-spec. So yes, it should go through POST even if the battery is dead.

Dominic

[905shmick]

My guess is bad ram. Seems to be the most common component to fail, only second to hard drive failures, but a hard drive failure won't cause the system to not post.

If you have multiple ram modules, try booting with only 1 in at a time.

[Bob L]

You can not reliably add RAM onto pre-existing RAM... you will want to buy all new RAM from the same batch in a matched set.

Bob L

[bcorkery]

Thanks, I'll go down the checklist. I might have to do a build with new components. I might have been penny wise, pound foolish. :(

[Mark Stebbeds]

You can not reliably add RAM onto pre-existing RAM... you will want to buy all new RAM from the same batch in a matched set.


I see no harm in replacing everything ...other than cost, but I've been advised that buying "the same" RAM from the same manufacturer is close enough. That's what I've always done when replacing/expanding RAM and never had a problem.

Mark

[Wink0r]

You can get a long way past the P-IV for not too much money these days. My first gen core2duo was about 25% faster than my 800 series dual core with the old architecture even though it was clocked at 2.4Ghz versus 2.66Ghz. The 45nm core2s are faster still.

[Pedro Itriago]

I see no harm in replacing everything ...other than cost, but I've been advised that buying "the same" RAM from the same manufacturer is close enough. That's what I've always done when replacing/expanding RAM and never had a problem.

Mark

The other way to go if you want to add RAM is to go to the memory manufacturer's web page and buy the same model/type sticks.

Is this or buy a whole new RAM, no other way around it.