Bad Processor or what?

[Rusty]

I hope I haven't offended anyone by restarting my thread. I'm still trying to get my machine to start up. It always locks on the blue screen. I think it's not completing the POST but I'm not sure.

I can't get it to boot from either cd-rom. I tried unplugging each drive and restarting, I disconnected each cable to the board, I even reseatred the chip. Nothing seems to work.

I have tried several disks to reboot including winternals and the factory recovery disks.

It seems that it freezes at the end of the POST I see the HD and Floppy and CD drives listed, then it freezes. If I disconnect the A drive (3 1/2) then boot it gives me an A drive error.

I can't access safe mode or recovery.

I can get into setup (BIOS) but no changes seem to help.

I really need some Ideas to solve this.

Thanks
Rusty

[Fed]

Get into bios and set it to the default or failsafe settings.
Then set your hard drive as 1st boot priority.
Then try to boot it.

If that fails go back to bios & set your cdrom as 1st boot priority and try to boot with your OS disk in the slot.

If that fails go back to bios & set your floppy as 1st boot priority and try to boot with a boot disk in the floppy drive.

Let's see what happens then.

[Rusty]

Tried all with no change.
Also disconnected and reconnected all components, also no change. I'm beginning to think bad processor or motherboard.
Does this sound reasonable?

I'm probably going to buy a new machine this weekend, but I still won't give up until I figure this out. I'm like that.
I was also going to try and swap in a processor from an older HP pavillion I have, but they're not even close.

[Fed]

Disconnect cdrom & hard drive.
Disable both in bios.
Set floppy as 1st boot device & try again with boot disk.
What boot disk are you using?

[Computer_Commando]

If processor was "bad" you would not be able to enter setup (BIOS).  Some motherboards just refuse to boot from the CD, even though the BIOS has a setting for this.  I had one like this and thought the CDROM was bad but it worked perfectly in another computer.  Most likely a "bug" in the BIOS.

[patio]

If you reseated the chip you might want to remove it and check for bent pins.

patio.

[Raptor]

Tell us exactly what type of error you see or what type of screen it halts at. Tell us after what occurance it has happened as well.

[Rusty]

I'll start from the beginning.
I had the problem on & off for 1-2 months, but seldom.
When the computer was turned on, it would go to the blue HP screen (press F1 for setup, F10 for recovery) and freeze on that screen. After turning it off and on a couple/few times it would come up ok. No problems once it was running.
Problem became more frequent, and did a restore back to before I remember the problem starting.
It got so I just wouldn't shut it off.
Then the other day my son turned it off and it won't come back up since.

What I've tried:
Tried to get it to boot with disk I got from the microsft site.
Also tried a boot disk made from winternals (ERD Commander)
I also tried to reboot from the HP's recovery disks.

I enabled the boot diagnostic screen to get rid of the blue screen. The post seems to go ok up to a point.
It recognizes my floppy, the HD and my CD RW and DVD Rom. After the CD RW the post sceen goes black & nothing happens.
If I start with a disk in the CD RW drive, it does the same thing, but the light for the drive stays on (permanently) I can here the drive spinning for about 15 seconds, and the light for the HD is on, but then the light goes out, the drive stays quiet, and the screen goes black. The fan stays running inside.

I can get into BIOS via F1 and I've tried all possible combinations in the boot priority menu.
I have disconnected all cables from the motherboard one at a time and together and tried to restart. I have pulled the CPU, checked and reseated it.

Nothing seems to work, or even change the results except:
When the memory card was out it wouldn't even come on and when the 3.5 floppy was disconnected it gives me a disk error.
Also I get no beeps during the startup.
My BIOS is Phoenix version 3.04

I listed my BIOS settings in a different thread. I will move 'em here in another post.


So, am I to understand that if I can access BIOS then my CPU is ok? Could it be a problem with the bios chip itself?

And does it sound like the POST is successful, or is it freezing towards the end?

And, if the BIOS is detecting the drives, why can't I get them to boot? It would seem to me that since I can hear the drives kick into action, then it's making it to the boot step, but something is going wrong at that point.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm tring to brainstorn this. Any input would be a big help. And please ask any questions you need for clarification.

Oh one other thing, how should the jumpers be set on my drive(s) to make sure they are set up properly to boot from.

Thank you
Rusty

[Rusty]

BIOS lists as follows:
System Time
System Date
(both correct)
Language
Legacy Diskette A [1.44/1.25 MB 3 1/2]
Primary Master [ST380012A-(PM)]
Primary Slave   [None]
Secondary Master [Samsung DVD-ROM SD-616E-(SM)]
Secondary Slave   [SONY  CD-RW CRX215E5-(SS)]
Installed Memory  256 MB [PC2100]
Memory Bank 0 256MB DDR SDRAM
Memory Bank 1 Not Installed
Core Version 4.06
BIOS Revision  3.24    10/14/03



Boot Priority
Removable Devices
CD Rom Drive
Hard Drive
Network Boot

[Rusty]

I forgot to add this:
When I first opened the case, I found the fins on the heat sink clogged with dust. I blew it out and checked the fan, which seems to work fine. I assumed that the CPU would not allow itself to overheat, but from what I've read recently, it seems overheating is actually a common problem.

That was what was making me think it may be a bad CPU. Sorry I failed to add this info before. It was probably important. :-/

[Computer_Commando]

...
1.  So, am I to understand that if I can access BIOS then my CPU is ok?
2.  Could it be a problem with the bios chip itself?
3.  And does it sound like the POST is successful, or is it freezing towards the end?
4.  And, if the BIOS is detecting the drives, why can't I get them to boot? It would seem to me that since I can hear the drives kick into action, then it's making it to the boot step, but something is going wrong at that point.
...

1.  Yes.
2.  No.
3.  Yes.
4.  That's what you will test now.  Try this:  disconnect flat "ribbon" cable at the motherboard from DVD and CD.  See if it boots from the HDD.  If yes, one of the drives is bad.   To isolate, disconnect one at a time.  If not, reconnect and disconnect the hard drive.  See if it boots a CD.  If yes, the hard drive is bad.

[gus_boy]

Rusty:
I'm late to the party, but there's one possibility that I haven't seen in your thread ( unless I just missed it) that you might try. Check your motherboard manual for a reference to a "Clear CMOS" jumper, and if present, follow those instructions. This technique can be attempted if the BIOS CMOS component has become corrupted, and may be a solution to your problem. I used this technique some time ago on a very early unit, and as I recall, it didn't do anything severe, just ran the BIOS code back to default. I feel your pain.

gus_boy

[Mac]

Or the Power Supply Unit is going bad.