[Obinice]

Hey guys! So, I wanted to disconnect 7 of my server's HDDs and leave one connected. I pulled the power and SATA cables, then turned it back on and put the boot CD I wanted to use in. Straight away, I noticed the strange behaviour, and I got no picture.

The computer resets 5 times (I can tell from the sound the CD Drive makes each time the computer resets), then it completely turns itself off. Fans and drives spin down. About a second or two later, it turns itself on again and repeats the process.

I knew disconnecting the drives wouldn't effect the BIOS like this, but I tried connecting all the drives back up so the machine was as it was before anyway. Same problem.

It seems that in the simple process I have bust something, but what could it be? With no BIOS or way to boot into a live CD, I can't tell what's broken. I tried googling my only evidence (the restarting), but found nothing.

Update: It looks like it was the RAM. I've never bust RAM before, but there's a first time for everything! I'll let you know if I get everything working okay again. At the moment, I'm in the BIOS. So it's looking fixed....

[Obinice]

Jesus H. C. Christ.

So I tested both RAM sticks to see which one was busted. I put the first one in, and it booted.

I put the second one in, and it booted. WTF.

My new theory? Somehow the RAM had come loose, and I gave it that extra knock out of place when I fiddled with the HDDs. Looks like all they needed was a nudge back in place.

At least, let's hope that's the case, and not that the RAMs working now, but will crash the system when it feels like it!

[Shane1022]

you got lucky! i had this same problem with my PC, but it turned out to be a bad capacitor next to the cpu. Had to send it in and wait about a month to get it back :/. Glad you got it fixed