[Novalug] Dead Computer Diagnosis

[Jay Hart]

Quick way to diag PC.

If you remove the memory, and don't get seven beeps, get another MB.

Now, this is if I remember correctly that seven beeps is a memory problem.

Jay

> Hi,
>
> I have a machine which is (nearly) dead and I need some help
> getting started on diagnosing it.  There's not much to go on.
>
> When I hit the power switch, it lights up and both fans (power
> supply and cpu) spin.  Nothing else happens.  The keyboard
> lights don't flash, there's no beep, and no synch is sent to
> the monitor.  As best I can tell there are no diagnostic leds
> anywhere on the motherboard.
>
> What led up to this state is as follows:
>
> This machine is primarily used as a file server, name server,
> DHCP server, etc.  A couple of nights ago it wasn't serving
> anything and I could not ping it, so I turned the monitor on
> and found that I had no synch.  So I tried to reboot it.  It
> got pretty far into the boot sequence (Fedora Core 3) and
> hung.  So I tried again.  It didn't get as far so I tried
> yet again.  This time it quit even quicker, so I figured maybe
> it was a heat problem and unplugged it for about a half an
> hour.  When I powered it back up I went into setup so I could
> watch the cpu temperature.  It started at 36 C and slowly climbed to 45 C
> where it seemed to level off.  I then turned
> it off but did not unplug it.  When I came back the next
> evening, I found it in the state described at the top of this
> note.
>
> One other thing:  When I was trying the reboots the first
> night, I could power the machine off with the front panel
> switch but I could not power it back up unless I unplugged
> it for about 10-15 seconds.  Does this give any hints?
>
> I have a digital voltmeter, so I can check voltages out of
> the power supply.  I haven't done that yet.
>
> (Please respond to the list or to hammonds at erols.com.  I am
> using webmail from work now, so the From address is probably
> not right.)
>
> TIA,
> Dave
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>