burn-in test problem

Bad motherboard?  Does it see a flopyy drive or can read from floppy drive?  

What I mean by bad motherboard is maybe the Bios is bad so it is running a diagnostic on the bios.  But can't get anywhere.  If you have access to a floppy drive on that machine you may be able to reflash bios.  Give us some information on the motherboard.

not sure what is the explanation behind the message there ,but have you tried to clear your cmos.  

try removing all devices connected to your mv like hdd, soundcard, modem etc and let your vga card intact. reboot if the problem and see if the problem is still there.

Regards

The only way to be sure is to try the video card in another know to work system or to try another video card in this system.

Sounds like a bad video card.  I will check.

Nope, not the video card, Rambus memory.  Try reseating your RAM.  Are you running RDRAM specially by Texas Instruments?

Is the EE databased messed up and putting random comments from other threads in this question?  Why the heck are you asking about Rambus type memory in a Pentium 200?

hehe....magarity I dunno but you never know these days?!  The user may have jimmy rigged his machine to take Rambus ram...Soldier a few points here and there wire it up and there ya go.
1 gig of ram in a Pentium 200 system! woo hoo...
j/k

I really appreciate the help that you all have given me.. and I guess to make the problem more coherent... I am not using RDRAM but standard SDRAM that came with the system. I have two memory chips .. one is a 32MB and the other a 64MB ... I will try to isolate the problem by checking if it is the vga card by first removing everything except the vga card as kahlen has proposed. If the problem still persists then I will try to connect the vga card to another working machine and see if it gives me a prob in that .. if it doesnt then I guess I will be in deeper waters since the problem might be more serious .. if it does then I will try to use a working vga card on my troublesome machine and see what happens... does this logic sound okay?
I will try these out and let you guys know. Could there be any other reason for this problem?

Nivlesh,  

I suppose you have not read my comment above?  Have you thought about a possible bad motherboard?  or bad bios?  Does your system see the floppy drive?  or can you boot to a floppy drive?  you may try reflashing the bios.  I do not think this is a bad video card.  It is not a typical issue to have with a video card.  Especially if you are getting something displayed with the videocard.  
IE: "Burn-in test u28 h61 V61"

Do you know the make of your motherboard or can you find out...?

If you still think it is video related do you have a spare video card to throw into the problem system?  If it gives you that same burn in message it is not the video card.. and you will not need to further test the video card in another machine.

What are the circumstances leading to this problem?  One morning you turn the computer on and get this problem when it has worked perfectly since 1993?

silly questions sometimes get silly answers.
you don't have a bootable floppy disk with a ram testing program in the floppy drive do you?

Bad CMOS battery perhaps?  Check the motherboard for a round flat battery, about 1" across (~2 cm) and see if you can read the part number on it.  Many of them are CR2032 which you can pick up anywhere that sells watch/calculator/etc batteries.

-dog*

I tried testing my system with the limited resources that I have. I removed all the cards (soundcard,modem) and just left the vga card in with mem and hdd still connected and inserted a floppy in the drive and rebooted... normally the bootup sequence is activated .. you know .. it checks the floppy then cd and then boots up from hdd... it did not do this... then I got more adventurous and removed the vga card .. but got the same result... then I removed the mem and the same thing happened.. normally the system would beep if memory or keyboard is missing but even though both were missing.. no beeps.. so it seems this is a case in the preliminary startup of the computer before it even checks the hdware ....
wizard I appreciate your response and sorry to say mate that I do not have the s/w that you asked and even if I did .. well I would not be able to use it since my comp does not even get to the stage where I can boot off the floppy...

Any ideas guys after the above input from me?
dogzter I will try to check the battery to see if it is okay ..

I am thinking that the U21 H48 V61 is probably just something the monitor is generating, especially if you still see this when the video card is not plugged in or connected to it!  I am sorry to say that I think your system is dead, possibly due to a motherboard failure.  Have there been any power surges/lightning strikes in your area lately?

So if I read your last comment right, you press power and nothing at all happens?  Have you checked that the wires from the case that go to the motherboard (i.e. the power switch) hasn't come off the header block (~16 small pins sticking up with a bundle of thin wires connecting to them)?  Perhaps your power supply has gone bad (which wouldn't be too suprising considering how old the system is).  Does the fan come on in the power supply??

-dog*

I tried testing my system with the limited resources that I have. I removed all the cards (soundcard,modem) and just left the vga card in with mem and hdd still connected and inserted a floppy in the drive and rebooted... normally the bootup sequence is activated .. you know .. it checks the floppy then cd and then boots up from hdd... it did not do this... then I got more adventurous and removed the vga card .. but got the same result... then I removed the mem and the same thing happened.. normally the system would beep if memory or keyboard is missing but even though both were missing.. no beeps.. so it seems this is a case in the preliminary startup of the computer before it even checks the hdware ....
wizard I appreciate your response and sorry to say mate that I do not have the s/w that you asked and even if I did .. well I would not be able to use it since my comp does not even get to the stage where I can boot off the floppy...

Any ideas guys after the above input from me?
dogzter I will try to check the battery to see if it is okay ..

dog

the display of "burn-in test u21 v21 h43" comes only when I have the vga card connected to the machine and the monitor connected to the vga card... so it is not something that I would get when the monitor is unconnected.. I tested the monitor by sending the output from my laptop to it and the monitor seems fine.

cheers

Try flashing your BIOS, or booting from floppy.  If nothing I would surmise the M-board is a goner.

I cannot flash the bios since to do that I would have to boot from the floppy and load the new image but the problem is that I cannot bootup from a floppy since the system does not even go that far...

I have managed to get a spare vga card and a cmos battery.. will try it tonight and see if either of the solns work

I already suggested flashing his bios.  He can't get into and can't boot from the floppy.  Like I said earlier the Board is probably bad.  You can try replacing CPU first...but the motherboard is probably the culprit.
If you can get a used board it may be a cheap fix....
Ebay has some pentium Boards running anywhere from 10 bux on up....some have CPU and ram....just need to look.  Otherwise, time to get a new computer.  If you buy a used motherboard you will not have to upgrade anything else as long as nothing else is damaged.  

I cannot flash the bios since to do that I would have to boot from the floppy and load the new image but the problem is that I cannot bootup from a floppy since the system does not even go that far...

I have managed to get a spare vga card and a cmos battery.. will try it tonight and see if either of the solns work

I dont think the spare battery or spare card will work.  however you may try it.  I believe it to be a bad motherboard as stated earlier on in the comments.

I cannot flash the bios since to do that I would have to boot from the floppy and load the new image but the problem is that I cannot bootup from a floppy since the system does not even go that far...

I have managed to get a spare vga card and a cmos battery.. will try it tonight and see if either of the solns work

You can manually flash a BIOS by removing the jumper on the motherboard, turning it on, turning it off, replacing and restarting.  This will bring it back to the original settings if they had become corrupt.  It's cheap to try it.

"manually flash a BIOS"

There's no such thing as manually flashing the but it IS a very really funny idea, thanks for the laughs!

You've described clearing the CMOS.

hey if that is a jumperless motherboard which jumper would I have to pull to reflash or Clear the CMOS!? :) muahhaha

Wakeup,  are you assuming that this is a jumperless motherboard?  I see nothing in the information given on the motherboard at all to see that it is jumperless, please teach me, oh wise one, of your sherlockdom.  

Margarity,  yes you are clearing the CMOS, but in all A+ training and on the test it is called "Flashing the BIOS".  Pull out the books again.

no no...I was only teasing willinois...hence the laugh and smily face.  And I also said "if" that is a jumperless moboard....

Sorry Wakeup.  I took it the wrong way.

the jumper you're looking for is usually near the battery & labelled CMOS clear or CMOS reset.

Okay .. here is the stats from the latest testing that I have done. I put in a new vga card .. but same error...I put in a new CMOS battery ... same error....

any ideas after these revelations?

I bet it was the motherboard....practically the only thing he did not change.  Sides the CPU...

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