he did get a tone for a bit...

BoXXi, if you happen to Pull those two connectors and this is an AT and not a ATX with a single PSU connector, make sure you reinstall them with the black wires in each of the connectors next to each other or you probably **will** fry you system when you turn it on.


I can not find the error tones for the SA? bios used in his motherboard and Abit doesn't have a thing on their site which I can find.

the CMOS battery shouldn't stop juice from flowing as having it installed completes the circuit.

the AT power supply cables connecting to the motherboard should not be able to come loose on their won unless the snap clips have been broken or mangled in some fashion.

if swapping out the CMOS battery does not in fact work personally I would cut out doing anything but lock step trouble shooting, anything is guess work on a possibility of a hit with many misses in between.

BoXXi, if you do not have the Motherboard Booklet anymore you can download the PDF from Abit, follow the trouble shooting steps in that and you will probably find you computers problem faster at this point.

Separate it into their own groups, Cable's Connector's Fan's LED's PSU, RAM CPU VIDEO PSU, add on CARDS PSU BIOS configuration.

You can try swapping your Monitor to see if anything comes across the screen with a different one installed. You can swap your keyboard, some systems refuse to do squat without a Keyboard installed, though I would think that would be an additive effect more so than a root cause.

You could also try swapping the power cables from the wall to the PSU as it could be something as silly as the power cable you are plugging into the wall and into the back of the PSU having one or both sockets too loose to carry the required juice to get it as far as it was before even when not fully booting (not so much at the wall, but in the back of the PSU)

anyway...
hope it all comes together for you soonest!

WAHHHHHH!! installed new battery.....still no go.....exactly same as before..... slight disk activity, then nothing!!  any further suggestions.....other than throwing it in the bin?

hmmm, must have posted the last time in insvisable text

hehe..IPlural...... no you didn't...... I do have the motherboard manual..... but the troubleshooting section is a waste of time, justa form to fill out and mail to Abit...... no actual troubleshooting methods..... I have tried all the things you mentioned, but nothing appears out of place or damaged or unseated. I'm beginning to think either the chip is fried or the mobo is fried, though I suppose it's hard to tell without specialist equipment.

Turn off the computer, Unplug the PSU, pull all cables and cards out of the system, disconnect the drives power connectors, leaving the CPU, CPU FAN, RAM installed.

Make sure the Power LED, Turbo LED, HDD LED, Sound, ReSet and Power connectors are plugged in correctly and not reversed.

Boot and see if you get the BIOS post boot info on your Display.

If not, rock ram back and forth in socket once.

Try again.


(something to consider:If not booting then install the ram in another system to make sure it did not get zapped some how, the same with the cpu. You should be able to take them to a local computer store (single shop not outlet) and they will probably check them for you.
)

If it does give you text error on the display or a tone error then you are getting to the bios without question.

With tone and video, then you vid card is fine.

With tone only, your video card is not functioning for some reason, try another.

The error should be something along the lines that the system could not find ROMBIOS of some such.

Shut down, insert ribbon cable and make sure it is not upside down, insert power cable.

Boot again and hit "ESC or DEL" and go into your CMOS settings and set the 1st drive to auto detect.

F10 to save and exit for reboot.

Should boot and see drive...

If not, install another drive as C that you know is good and the one in question as D.

Boot and enter into CMOS settings, set drive 2 to auto detect.

Boot again and see if it runs through identifying the new C drive correctly.

If not, your BIOS chip might be faulty, or the IDE port Channel 0 (1), which could be the port (socket) or the motherboard (doubtful)....

If the drive connects directly to the motherboard, purchase a secondary IDE Card and install it. I would suggest connecting to the second channel on the motherboard, but if one went bed the other is probably going to go bad also in short order.

..........

If the drive boots, add your cards one at a time and boot between each card added to make sure the system is not hosing up.

Also, if AGP, of VESA video, do not install a card in the PCI slot right below the Video card, the next slot down shares the buse and it can cause problems.

Another thing to look out for is NIC's and Sound cards, you might have to play card shuffle to get everything to play nice on the buse, but once it is done everything should be ok.

As far as throing it away only you can decide that, is it worth your time? and, is it worth you putting more money into if you find you need more than a battery?
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O.K. John.....thank you for the help, I will try the procedures you have listed above, and see what happens. I'll let you know if I get any success.

np BoXXi, I know how it can get when theses things happen and all the info isn't handy or able to be found. Yes, I see that with the manual, I downloaded the PDF fom Abit in hope they would have something on the Error tones no joy...

something that could be happening here which would do this and lead to hours of trouble shooting and not be found unless looked for would be the motherboard it self.

Some times in transit the case can be bounced around enough to actually let the momboard shift on it's stands so that the momboard shorts, or one of the addon cards shorts.

Pulling the cards and still having the problem removes the cards being shorted from being a possibility. But, unless they used the paper washers with the stands (brass not the plastic ones) then it could shift and short. while you have the cards out you might want to see if you can push the momboard and move it at all on the stands. If you can, you want to make sure that no traces or gold comes into contact with the screw heads of the case in any manner. There might be a mental ring/boss where the screw goes through the momboard which is common, what your looking for is any flaked coating which allows traces to contact metal...

I can post the lock step (point by point) trouble shooting process if you like and want to go through it. One thing about something like this happening is you do learn a lot about systems which is actually how most tech's start out if you ask them "My computer screwed up and support sucked, or, the warrent was run out"

I've had this happen twice with two different systems over the years. In both cases, I believe it was a grounding problem. In both cases, The problem fixed itself when I took everything out (including the mobo) and booted it up on the bench (not in the case). I put everything back together and it still worked. BTW, in both of these intances, the systems were AT.

Good luck.

It's o.k. John.... I can follow the steps you outlined above..... not a problem, no need to post them. If necessary, to get at the data on the HDD, I can just throw it into this sytem and get at it that way. Time is also precious at the moment, and I can't spare too much on this. I wish I knew as much you do though!!! hehe 

OH something else....

Is there a printer hooked up to this system?

Current flows on a centroncis cable and if it is not seated all the way and an arch takes place when the BIOS checks for the LPT port it can do odd things.

I had a lady once who called down to IT that was saying her computer was possed because everytime someone would walk up to her desk it ould reboot, and sometimes it would constantly reboot if they where still standing there.

So I went down and sat with her for about 15 minutes after looking the system over and inding nothing wrong. I pushed it back under her desk and noticed that the printer cable was a bit short but didnt think anything of it. This lady walks up to the table behind her where her printer is sitting and bingo, the computer reboots, they laughed and I looked under the desk, the system cycled and rebooted again, but I see anything. So I though about it a second, and it cycled once more, I noticed that the printer did not initialize like it should itself. So I went and looked at it. The Centronics connector was not seated and each time the system cycled there was a flash. The printed cable was run under one of those static mats which this other lady was standing on. "Oh that thing, yes I always have to push it back in at least twice a week when the printer quits printing" good thing she didn't start a fire with all the loose paper she had thrown all over the desk and printer...

Bryan it just means I've screwed up more

I just noticed..... the cpu fan is not turning....does that tell you anything John?   (no printers or anything hooked up at the moment.)

Is your case fan running? ....and how dirty is that CPU fan?

one of three things come to mind...

1: bad or shorting CPU fan
2: system short
3: bad or going bad PSU

I would lean towards a short of some sort taking place.

If all was working before it was put into the car, and then not after coming out of the car. The only thing that could have taken place in the car is vibration leading to shifting parts.

If nothing odd took place as far as plugging it in while turned on, power suppy is not switched over to US instead of UK power standard, and there was not any type of flash indicating a power surge or a burnt air (ozone smell) inside the case, then it would have to pretty much be something in transit.

Something you can do is actually pull and smell the cards, cpu and such. If they are cooked you will not be able to mistake it, that is a smell once learned is feared

It is kind of like a "New CRT Monitor" smell, but a bit weaker and musty burnt...

No smells, ( I know the smell you mean John) Case fan is running fine. (PSU is quite new in this case, about 6months old) CPU fan IS pretty dirty, I have cleaned it up a bit, gonna try it again.

Without the fan running the CPU will overheat in seconds and bring everything to a stop

Yeah, John...it's a smell you don't forget...

I'm not real concerned about the CPU fan....most 233's came down the pike without them and Intel's only throttle down versus burning up, but if the case fan isn't running, I agreed with you that it's most likely the PSU heading south....

I know this is something simple....just can't put my finger on it......

mmm, had you actually seen the system running before you packed it up and put it in your car?

I mean, that day right before taking it home?

CPU fan not working means the PSU isn't passing any power out - which on an older model like that probably means the PSU is the problem...as IPlural has already suggested - make sure you disconnect EVERYTHING from the PSU in the case...I've had many times when a blown floppy or HDD, or even a faulty reset switch on the case can stop the PSU from starting up.

With any diagnostics like this, if you've tried the basics (which you have) then go back to basics. Empty the case if needed, connect the PSU to the hard disk and see if it spins up. If it doesn't then the PSU or the HDD are at fault.

There's a small fuse inside most PSU, which can blow easily...it's not a user servicable part and I'd certainly not recomend anyone open up a PSU unless you seriously know what you're doing....but, the fuse is sometimes all it needs replacing. I'll stress again though, if it's the PSU, just get a replacement or borrow one from somewhere to see if there's other faults too.

I don't think the PSU is the problem....as I said, it's quite new, and everything seems to fire up. The CD drive works, the hard drive fires up but stops after very little disk activity, which leads me to believe it MIGHT be the CPU that is fried. I'm not that knowlegable though, I could be miles out!!

Hey John.....what about the power switch connecter at the bottom of the board?


Thought you may have shot the thing Bryan.....check the connecters at the bottom of the board...






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and still NO beeps of any description!!

power switch connectors seem o.k. Gary.

connectors can do it, reversed floppy cable will do it every time...

mmm...

Gary's got a point there on the switch/sound/led pin block...

if pulling the cards and cables, leaving the switch block all connected (led's and turbo, on/off) and you still get nothing, then pull all of those also, but keep the power and sound hooked up...

make sure they are on the correct pins also, for what ever reason when they silk screen the layout on those they make it so you need a electromicron telescope to read them... one pin off in either difection of reversed can put your system in fubar mode
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But surely, If no one has been inside the case, they cant be reversed or in the wrong place, as they would still be in the same place as when it left me in working condition. I have checked everything is seated properly, so I guess it must be a major component like the cpu or the board.