[NBLUG/talk] Weirdness: BIOS POST lockups

[William Tracy]

(Sorry this email got so long, but I've been fighting this for a while
without getting a resolution.)


Hello,

I've got a weird issue that has me stumped. :-) My computer randomly
locks up on boot during the POST.

Normally, when I first power on the machine I see a screen from my
video card's firmware, then the screen for the Award BIOS. It checks
my CPU and displays the CPU name, then checks the RAM, and I see the
numbers rapidly count count off the amount of memory, followed by a
brief pause before my bootloader launches.

However, recently it has started locking up somewhere between the CPU
detection and RAM detection. When this happens, I see the CPU name
displayed, but the line where I normally see the memory count is
completely blank. At the bottom of the screen I can see the notice to
press delete to enter set up, but the computer doesn't respond to
this--its completely locked up.

Now, here's where things get really weird. :-)

I first noticed the problem about a month and a half ago. It steadily
got worse--sometimes I would have to power-cycle the machine half a
dozen times to get to the bootloader (turn it on, see it lock up,
power off, ...two ...three ...four, power it up, it locks up, power it
off, go organize some books, power it up, it locks up...)--until it
reached the point where I couldn't boot the machine at all. I pulled
out the power supply (an Antec) and replaced it with a Dynex one. The
problem magically went away, and I chalked it up to capacitor plague
in the power supply.

Then, three weeks ago, I left the machine running continuously for a
week while seeding some torrents. At the end, I powered the machine
down for the night (I normally turn off my computer at night or when
I'm at class), and when I powered it up again the POST locked up as I
described before.

My first guess was that my new power supply was defective, and just
hadn't failed until I stress tested it. I used the system normally for
the next week, and found that the POST locked up more or less
randomly, again as described before.

However, before I returned the Dynex, I opted to test the old Antec
one more time. Lo and behold, it booted. Again, over the next week, I
found that it failed randomly on maybe every other boot. When I had
stopped using it before, it had not been booting at all.

So, now I'm wondering if the problem is really the power supply at
all. I can't imagine what else it could be, though, unless maybe it's
something in the motherboard. (I really don't want to replace the
motherboard!)

So, at this point I'm trolling for ideas. I've run out of keywords to
throw at Google, and I've resorted to just leaving the machine on all
the time because I don't know if I'll be able to power it up again.
I've started panicking every time I think I smell smoke (happened
twice so far, but it wasn't actually coming from the
computer--probably from someone's microwave). :-(

Any thoughts?

(Trying to stay on topic, the machine in question *is* running Debian Etch...)

-- 
William Tracy
afishionado at gmail.com -- wtracy at calpoly.edu

"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!"
                -- Mom