Faulty Bios? New MOBO?

I have been running WinXP Pro on a 2.1GHz Athlon machine with an Asus MOBO with AMI Bios and 1.5GB of RAM.

I have recently decided to perform a total Hard Drive format and complete OS reinstall because of hardware interupt issues on my PC which were causing software to run slowly and 100% CPU usage.

The problem started when the XP CD was not recognised on boot up. I accessed the bios to change the boot sequence but on re-booting the CdROM was still not found. I read online of a microsoft knowledge base 310994 (or something) which provided 6 floppy disks to enable cdrom drivers to load at boot up. I therefore went to change the bios sequence to recognise floppy first but had the idea to restore bios defaults while i was there. I saved, exited and tried to reboot.

The problem now is that the PC will not boot up at all. The fans start up and the base unit lights come on but the monitor is not activated and there is no beep as is usually heard upon boot up.

I didn't get to make the 6 microsoft disks so i've not tried to boot up with them insserted. But I question whether the system would even recognise they are there since there is no boot up anyway.

Is the BIOS ruined? Can it be repaired? Do I need a new motherboard? Can anyone help? Am I an idiot??

Please Help

GingerNinja:cry

 

Hi there.
To start with go to basics.
Disconnect hard drive, disconnect cd/dvd rom, remove graphics card , if you have one.only have one stick of ram installed.
Start machine, see if you get the magic beep.
If no beep, then shut down, and remove power cord, press the insert button on the keyboard for a 10/20 seconds - this drains any residual power from the board.
Look for the motherboard jumpers, and move the jumper from its present position to the next pins (if its on 1 & 2 , put on 2 &3) for 15 seconds , or, so. This will reset the Bios(usually). Then reconnect power cord and restart, see if you have the beep/beeps.

 

On some motherboards the start button does the same as the insert button, when power cord connected.
If you get the magic beep on starting, shut down and reintroduce the graphics card ( if you have one), then restart.
If no screen graphics card could be suspect.
If you now get the screen, then shutdown, remove power cord, as before, and connect hard drive. Restart.
If you can enter Bios, it should show your hard drive, - if o.k, then shutdown, remove power cord, as before, connect cd/dvd rom.
restart, and check in Bios that it has found it. If it now shows all, then ensuring you have set to start first from cd rom, you shoul dbe able to reinstall your operating system.
Any problems, on the way, come back and tell us, someone will help more , if needed.
Sometimes, if it is not soldered in, resetting the bios can also be done by removing and replacing the motherboard battery, for about 30 seconds.

 

Once you have got the bios sorted, with Baks help, make sure you switch off any 'anti virus function in bios' before you try to reinstall Windows.

Studio T

 

Thanks for your replies guys.

I have got hold of a laptop now so that I can check this forum while working on the PC.

I went to the shop in Brighton where I bought the pc this morning before getting the laptop (so before checking this forum for your posts) and they told me to remove the batery to reset the bios. I have done this and am hoping that runing through your suggestions will still work.

So I stripped the pc of the graphics card, master and slave HDD's, DVDROM, DVDRW, and the 1GB RAM stick (leaving the 512MB RAM in there).

Tried rebooting and heard beeps (plural when normally only one).

Put graphics card back in and rebooted.

Screen is back!! Underneath the Auto-detecting section (where nothng detected obviously) it says "CMOS/GPNV Checksum Bad". Is this normal because the HDD's are not in or is this an indication of a faulty bios?? I am hesitating to proceed any further in case this needs to be sorted now. I get the option to "Press F2 to run setup" or to "Press F1 to load default values and continue".

What do I do??

Help would be appreciated again.

Cheers

GingerNinjaconfused

 

By the way. I am having trouble finding the correct jumpers on the MOBO - if indeed I need to change them anymore.

Am i looking for the Clear CMOS Jumper??

GingerNinja

 

Not a problem.

The checksum message is normal after you have reset the bios and sometimes after you have changed hardware.

In your case I expect you will need to reset the date and time to clear it. The bios reverts to its start date 1182 or whatever when you reset it.

Just press F2 or del at power up and enter the appropriate info. Rmember to choose save settings and exit and answer yes to the check question.

Studio T

 

ok! Have entered bios and adjusted the time and date. Reconnected Master Hard Drive and boot up has taken place. am about to connect the other drives starting with the Master DVD drive then the Slave DVD then the Slave Hard Drive. Is this the best ordder or should I put the extra stick of RAM in before any of the drives?

The only other thing to install is the wireless LAN card which I presume should be the last of all.

Incidentally, the whole point of this process was to wipe the HDD's and OS and reformat and reinstall. The reason for doing this was to eradicate the serious amount of Hardware Interupts that I was getting when using the PC for the most basic of functions. Do you think that the Hardware Interupts will continue after the reinstallation or will the process I'm going through now will resolve it - ie. will any hardware conflicts etc be rectified in this back to basics approach????

Cheers again for your help/advice. Muchly appreciated.

GingerNinja

 

Not sure where you are at.

Have you now done the reinstallation of windows?
After this you will probably need to install some hardware drivers that windows doesn't have.
For this reason it is best to start with a minimal configuration and add on once it is running properly. i.e. one hard drive and one cd......

Or has the system now rebooted with the old installation still in place?

Studio T

 

Sorry had a mission to run. Back now.

So this is where I'm at.

On reboot after connecting the master HD I let the system reboot fully without going to bios. Everything started up as per usual into WinXP. The system is still a little choppy though I'm hoping the reinstall of WinXP will sort that out. I was just about to reboot with the slave DVDRW connected but without the Slave HD or the 1GB RAM or the PCI Cards. Should I disconnect the Slave DVD Drive and concentrate on the reformat/reinstallation?

Ta

 

OK lets go through the install process.

There are two types of install.

A clean install which wipes everything out and starts again. Obviously you will loose all of the data, programs and settings on the pc. Once done you will have it 'likenew'. All malware will be gone. But so will all the drivers. and Windows will require reactivation (not difficult).

A repair install where Windows is reinstalled ' on top ' of the existing. Only Windows own files are touched so all the stuff you had before will still be there, data, programs, drivers. However because a new registry is written some of the settings and some of the programs and drivers will not work and have to be reinstalled. The bad news is that any malware will still be there.
Reactivation will not be required but all the windows updates after the date of your windows cd will have to be reinstalled.

So before you start you need to marshal your resources and decide which you want to do. The The repair takes about 45 minutes, the clean install about 90.

Make sure you have the windows key from the label on the side of your pc.
Make sure your windows pc will now boot the system from the cd. This is why I said only one cd drive - it stops confusion.
Make sure you have the drivers for your hardware. Perhaps copy any folders labelled Drivers on your c drive to somewhere safe. At the very least while Windows is still running download everest from MG and get a list of the hardware devices and the manufacturer types numbers etc.
Don't boost to more than 512 of memory at the outset.

When you know you can control the pc with th cd post again.


Studio T

 

Right. Only 1 HD and 1 DVDROM connected.

Am now copying all drivers I can find from the OS partition to my external HD. i had previously copied everything else in preperation for the big reinstall. I am still getting pretty slow response from the PC in terms of data transfer, opening programs/folders etc. and so I think the full reformat and reinstall is still the way to go. Presuming that there are driver issues or software complications I'd rather go through the complete reinstallation of all software again than have to deal with a slow pc in the future.

I'll post back when the reinstallation has gone smoothly or not.

Cheers

 

OK. I have rebooted with the OS CD in the DVD Drive and have entered the "WinXP Professional Setup". I have reached a page showing the existing partitions on the HD. When I try to install on the partition that the old OS is on it gives me a warning that "installing on this partition might causenthe other OS system to function improperly" which makes sense but I thought that there was a way to format the partition before installation. Am I wrong. If I choose to delete the partition does this render the process doomed??

Help!

 

Don't worry you are nearly there.

Boot the pc with the Windows disk
at the first screen (welcome to setup) press enter
At the second screen choose the existing windows partition
press enter
ok to the warning message
yes to format
format as ntfs
use a full format
F8 to accept the license
and away you go , just follow the instructions
enter the key when asked and other information about location, times zone etc.


Studio T

 

Cheers.

Format underway and reinstallation will commence after. I have done a few installs but only on new formatted disks. All should be well from here on in.

Do I format the other partitions on the drive from Windows Disk Manager or by using the OS CD?

GingerNinja

 

Wait until you have Windows running again and then do it from there. I assumed you wanted these partitions and had been wise enough to create data partitions or somesuch in the past so that when the inevitable reinstall comes around your data is still there safe.

Dont access them until you have installed antivirus except for format.


Happy Geeking

Studio T

 

Good work MajorGeeks Baklogic and StudioT!

All is back to normal thanks to you guys - in fact things are running better than they have done in quite some time.

I can't thank you enough for bringing my pc back from the dead.

Well Geek'd.

GingerNinja:wave

 

That's a good Sunday Story

:grouphug

Studio T

 

Studiot saw you through, as I said, someone here, at majorgeeks will do their best to help, and it pleases all of us no end, to know you are out of trouble, and becoming a future geek.