[Milkchoc]

ok, I have a challange here for us techies!

My story....I try to boot my desktop computer after not turning it on for several months.....been using my laptop. Instead of the normal comforting sounds of the hd spinning up and the normal beeps, I get a loooog beep.....a pause.....long beep until I turn it off. I check the beep codes for my award bios....indicates bad memory. Eventually I get out and buy a new memory mod. I install it, now no beeps, but it will only post as far as the memory check. Memory check say ok. It won't go any further. All I have is the bios screen and post up to mem check. Floppy drive appears dead, no light on, nothing. Sooooooo, I read on and from other posts, think it might be the battery is dead. Computer is over 5 years....so I get a new battery, install it, same thing. Posts to mem check. Now it gets interesting. I take off the master drive and try booting with slave (no os on slave). It boots further but gives me a check sum error. but I am able to click f1 and get to the bios. All looks well there. I also have the option to continue....it goes to C:/ (no os in on the drive). So I put the master back in, check the power supply, all the cables etc. Finally after sitting there watching that bios screen doing nothing, I roughly push the reset button out of frustration.....and guess what???????? The sucker boots right up as if nothing was ever wrong. So I run the virus check, all clear. So, I try to reboot and it goes back to the same old problem. After several (15 or so) rough attacks on the reset button, it boots up. What the heck? Any ideas? I won't turn it off until I hear from someone. HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP! (This is actually as funny as it is frustrating to me). Oh, and NO I don't kick my dog :-)

[Milkchoc]

Did I mention that I put the OLD memory back in and it has been booting on that when it does decide to boot? I don't think that the memory was the problem to start with.

[Hughv]

My best guess would be the power supply is failing.

[Milkchoc]

I checked the power supply with one of those testers, says it all ok.

[spikeycactus]

maybe there was a power surge while you were away?

[JSanguancheu]

I have a feeling the master HD is damaged. Possibly by a power surge while it was sitting there unused.

It might be a good idea to go to Seagate.com and get their HD software to clone the master to the secondary HD since you have it running at the moment.

Backup all important data, if any, to DVD or external HD too, just in case.

[Milkchoc]

if the hd is damaged, why does it boot at all? And why would that stop the activation of the floppy drive? The floppy light does not come on either, unless it boots with one of the rough resets.

[Milkchoc]

I took the hard drive to another one of my desk tops, and it booted right up. I put the drive back into the old computer, and same problem......but was eventually able to get it to boot. I have a check sum error, but i suspect that is from removing and replacing the battery. An easy fix I suppose, I'll deal with that later.

[JSanguancheu]

Hmm.. Try using a new IDE/SATA cable and cleaning the connectors.
Maybe the onboard controller is getting a little flakey.

[Milkchoc]

I tried changing the cable, put the cable from that machine on another machine, it worked fine, cable from other machine on the hanging machine, still hangs. Purchased new memory, still hangs. So, today, after a few tries, it started and loaded windows as if it had behaving all along. Afraid to turn it off, I decided to try Soyo tech support. They guy on the phone was very polite and ready to help me in spite of the fact that it is an old and discontinued board (cudos to soyo). So I went to the machine, and turned it off as he instructed although I warned him that getting it going again would be a problem. To my TOTAL surprise, that sucker started right up, and has been restarting since. I've plugged all of my boards and drives back in, and it acts like nothing ever happened! I am so puzzled! Happy, but still wondering what was wrong? I'm running mcafee now, perhaps a virus? I only care because I fear that it will happen again. Any thoughts?