Help

[Maxflyer]

My Son's pc started playing up recently. It has a 900MHz Duron processor, 512MB Ram and runs Win 98SE.

It kept starting in safe mode and he couldn't stop it. Tried reloading windows, but didn't work. He tried to FDisk the drive but when he restarted the pc it just kept saying something about looking for IDE1.

He said he would check the IDE leads, he said they were all connected ok. Put the sides back on the machine and restarted it. Same thing again. He then tried to check the boot order in BIOS. It asked for a password, but neither he nor I had any idea what this could be. The guy that built the machine now lives in another part of the world and we can't contact him!

He said that if he removed the battery it would reset the machine and we could avoid the need for a password. Took battery out and then put it back.

Pressed the on button and now nothing happens. Everything he has done has sort of made sense, but this has left me baffled. I took a meter to the power supply and everything seems ok there ( I say, seems, as I am strictly an amateur).

Can anyone suggest another course of action. I have considered a good kicking, but thought I would ask my PPRuNe colleagues first!

MF

[heinzmanm]

I suggest disconnecting all leads from any floppy/hard/cd drives and removing any modems etc from the PCI slots.
Connect to a monitor and try switching it on.
If nothing happens at all (ie it doesn't switch on/make any noise), it is highly likely that it is the PSU that is the problem.
If you have another PC that you are able to remove the PSU from and try in this machine, this is an option and will allow you to see whether or not this is in fact that faulty component.
The other possibility is that the motherboard battery is dead, in which case you can either buy a new one or buy a new motherboard.

Hope this helps

Matt

[nickshew]

When your son went inside the machine he may have dislodged the power switch lead.

Basically the power switch on the case just signals the motherboard to start, it does not actually supply power to the PC.

On the motherboard there will be a buch of connectors for HDD LED, speaker, reset, power switch etc. It's probably worth making sure these are all still connected.

As for the password. There is often a jumper setting on the motherboard to clear the BIOS settings. This would remove the password, and set the BIOS to default. Otherwise, removing the battery is the right thing to do. Leave it out for some time and then start the machine without it in. This may also work.

Give those thinks a try first off.

Nick