[NBLUG/talk] [CPLUG] Weirdness: BIOS POST lockups

David Sharp whereami at gmail.com
Tue May 22 01:32:38 PDT 2007


Ideas in the order that you should test:
1. RAM  --  borrow a good stick from a friend, and/or run memtest86
2. PSU  --  would be bad luck to get two bad ones in a row... again,
borrow from a friend. Also, how much power can your PSU deliver? maybe
you're not spending enough money. with power supplies, you usually get
what you pay for.
(now the wackier ideas...)
3. BIOS?  --  could potentially be a corrupted bios.. find an image to
flash it with.
4. CPU heatsink?  --  maybe you're just overheating? check your
temperature gauges.

After that, it's not going to be any fun, b/c it's probably the mobo
or the CPU, which are hard to test, and expensive to replace.

On 5/21/07, Jimson Xu <jxu at calpoly.edu> wrote:
> Just throwing out crazy ideas since I've never seen this problem
> before...  Could it be faulty RAM?  Since it seems to die around the
> time it starts to check the RAM.  Maybe run a memory test (when your
> computer decides to boot for once) or replacing your RAM modules.
>
> -Jimson
>
> William Tracy wrote:
>
> >(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...)
> >
> >
> >
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> Cplug at lists.cplug.org
> http://lists.cplug.org/mailman/listinfo/cplug
>


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