How old?
I'd start with replacing the cmos battery.
then when you boot press DEL go to the bios and check the date and year is correct
that in itself cancause boot problems
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Browse All Topicsi am working with an old system and for some reason this system stalls during boot up
at different places during boot process of windows 2000 and when i tried using mini pe
I replaced RAM with no improvment
I connected the hard drive to another pc and I am able to see the files without any problems
and sometimes it posts and sometimes it doesnt
and freezes at different spots (intel P3)
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look what mobo you have, then check if it has known issues on the net, like bad capacitors : www.badcaps.net
Here my troubleshooting procedure :
clean the system from dust, then test with the minimum setup - disconnect also all peripherals and network cables :
connect only motherboard + cpu + 1 ram stick, video card, power supply
verify that the 4-pin or 8-pin CPU Aux power plug is connected
on boot, do you have a display?
if NO it is one of the connected, swap ram, Power supply, video card or monitor - leaving only motherboard and cpu
if Yes, add devices till the problem shows
you can also check the motherboard for bad capacitors as shown here : www.badcaps.net
additional tests and things to try :
boot without ram, it should beep; (also, without video card)
try bios default settings,(if possible) or clear the bios by removing AC and bios battery
Hey Nobus, are you related to Nobushi?
http://www.experts-exchang
A problem booting a system as old as this is very likely to be power related - either the power supply or capacitors on the motherboard. Capacitors can dry out over the years and look perfectly fine, but not work correctly, and your power supply has capacitors inside as well. If you're not good at soldering, you will need to replace the entire power supply or motherboard. You can go through nobus' procedure to isolate it, but I think in the end it is going to be one of these.
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by: and235100Posted on 2009-07-20 at 14:23:42ID: 24899199
Any chance that tthe computer is overheating? Are there any temperature readings given in the cmos setup? I wouldn't have thought that temperature would be the issue, but mentioned it just in case. Is the heatsink making correct contact with the CPU die - are there any fans in the computer, and are they running free and at normal speed?
Does the system stay powered on when in the cmos setup? Do you always get graphics output? Any beeps during POST?