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| Thread ID: 148004 | 2019-06-13 05:31:00 | Desktop PC on the blink | Jayess64 (8703) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1461490 | 2019-06-14 00:27:00 | How old does it have to be to have a dead CMOS battery? Mine is 9 years and still happy Doesn't matter about the age, seen some fail quickly after 6 months others last for years. It NOT one time suits all. Bit like hard Drives some have longer life spans than others. I got a customer laptop HDD here, 16 months old, totally failed. |
wainuitech (129) | ||
| 1461491 | 2019-06-14 00:51:00 | Try the easy things first :-) Remove & re-seat the RAM. If more than 1 stick, try just a single stick unplug ALL cables from the motherboard ,incl SATA, except the 2 big power connectors . Unplug power cable from the HD's Unplug all USB devives, kb & mouse Make sure the USB connector for the front USB is unplugged from the motherboard . Faulty USB ports can cause this Visually inspect the USB ports on the motherboard, look for broken USB ports, pins shorting in the USB port. Chances are its power supply or motherboard failing. Power supply is more commonly the issue. Plug in the kb again & start the PC. Press the numlock & caps lock to see if those lights on the kb come on. Unplug the monitor & try the kb test again. My cries of triumph were a bit premature. As I am sure everyone on this forum knows, the worst kind of problem in a complex system is the intermittent fault. Just about anything you do "fixes" it - till next time. 1101, I have already done just about everything you suggest except the case-front USB check. I didn't think of that and I will check it. Mouse and keyboard are wireless, so there shouldn't be any issue there. I have taken everything out of the box, replaced the CMOS battery, reseated all the power supply connectors, shifted the monitor to the on-board video, all to no avail. I then re-assembled the system, double checked the RAM modules seating - and the damn thing worked. But I don't trust it. Interestingly, if I put the machine to sleep it seems to able to wake up without a problem. The fault seems to occur when the PC starts from power-off state. So far it has woken from the sleep state without a hitch. To me that would point the finger at the power supply. I don't have a spare on hand, so it looks as though I need to bite the bullet and get a replacement (I have already ordered new RAM). Thanks to all who have contributed suggestions so far. Believe me, they help. |
Jayess64 (8703) | ||
| 1461492 | 2019-06-14 00:58:00 | My cries of triumph were a bit premature. As I am sure everyone on this forum knows, the worst kind of problem in a complex system is the intermittent fault. Just about anything you do "fixes" it - till next time. . Had a customers Computer like that once, it would ONLY play up in the morning after being off overnight AND you had to start it before 7am ish -( heat of the day warming up) , so when you changed something it then booted, you had to wait till the following morning to see if it was the fix or not. At the end of the day it turned out to be a dry joint on the motherboard, once it got the second hint of going it went OK for the rest of the day didn't matter if you turned it off or not. Intermittent faults are fun (not) Some give me strange looks when I say "lets hope it blows up completely" Meaning once the part fails fully at least you can find it :D |
wainuitech (129) | ||
| 1461493 | 2019-06-14 01:43:00 | I then re-assembled the system, double checked the RAM modules seating - and the damn thing worked. . its not going to be easy to track down the issue without parts to swap in. It might not be the power supply , if you could borrow one to test with that may save you the expense of buying one that doesnt fix the issue My home pc when has similar issues , maybee once a month. I have to move the RAM to another slot to get it to boot, then the next time I move it back again. |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1461494 | 2019-06-14 02:16:00 | Doesn't matter about the age, seen some fail quickly after 6 months others last for years.. Really? The only dead battery I ever came across in all my IT years was a REALLY old PC, as in an old UNIX one. Unix, not Linux. Xenix I think it was. batteries are batteries, I guess some are crap but really 6 months?! |
piroska (17583) | ||
| 1461495 | 2019-06-14 02:53:00 | Really? The only dead battery I ever came across in all my IT years was a REALLY old PC, as in an old UNIX one. Unix, not Linux. Xenix I think it was. batteries are batteries, I guess some are crap but really 6 months?! Ive had to replace plenty . The really old school mb batts were soldered on & used to leak, corroding the nearby PCB tracks :badpc: |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1461496 | 2019-06-14 03:43:00 | Really? The only dead battery I ever came across in all my IT years was a REALLY old PC, as in an old UNIX one. Unix, not Linux. Xenix I think it was. YES REALLY. last one was a Dell PC at a guess around 5 years old. |
wainuitech (129) | ||
| 1461497 | 2019-06-17 09:26:00 | I hope this is the last chapter in this saga, but there could be a happy ending. I seem to have fixed the problem. I know exactly what I did to fix it, but I have no idea why or how it worked, or why the problem appeared in the first place. The motherboard has 4 RAM slots and I have been using 2 x 8GB modules in slots 1 & 2. When I removed or replaced a module the PC would boot correctly and behave normally, but if it was shut down and then started again it would fail to boot, and just sit there with the fans spinning until it was shut down by holding down the power button. I decided to see if there a systematic behaviour when the RAM configuration was changed, so I spent most of Saturday morning moving modules, both singly and two at a time, around the slots. After 7 cycles of changing the configuration, booting up, shutting down and then starting again, the pattern was very obvious. After a new configuration the PC booted correctly, but if it was then shut down and restarted, the boot-up failed. This continued until I populated both slots 3 & 4. After the successful boot-up I again shut down and re-started. For a moment it looked as if the pattern already established would continue, but then the system shut itself down. When I restarted, there was successful boot-up, and the PC has continued to behave normally ever since. I returned the modules to the original slots 1 & 2 without any bother. Running the Windows memory check showed no issues with the RAM. So I am left asking WTF? (I am not referring to the World Trade Federation) Did I simply beat it into submission? |
Jayess64 (8703) | ||
| 1461498 | 2019-06-17 10:45:00 | Pure speculation, maybe one of the contacts is a bit corroded and all the plugging in and out finally scraped it clean ? Plugging them in and out and has possibly been temporarily improving the connection. If it comes back maybe some contact cleaner is worth a try. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1461499 | 2019-06-17 21:47:00 | I hope this is the last chapter in this saga, but there could be a happy ending. I seem to have fixed the problem. I know exactly what I did to fix it, but I have no idea why or how it worked, or why the problem appeared in the first place. The motherboard has 4 RAM slots and I have been using 2 x 8GB modules in slots 1 & 2. When I removed or replaced a module the PC would boot correctly and behave normally, but if it was shut down and then started again it would fail to boot, and just sit there with the fans spinning until it was shut down by holding down the power button. I decided to see if there a systematic behaviour when the RAM configuration was changed, so I spent most of Saturday morning moving modules, both singly and two at a time, around the slots. After 7 cycles of changing the configuration, booting up, shutting down and then starting again, the pattern was very obvious. After a new configuration the PC booted correctly, but if it was then shut down and restarted, the boot-up failed. This continued until I populated both slots 3 & 4. After the successful boot-up I again shut down and re-started. For a moment it looked as if the pattern already established would continue, but then the system shut itself down. When I restarted, there was successful boot-up, and the PC has continued to behave normally ever since. I returned the modules to the original slots 1 & 2 without any bother. Running the Windows memory check showed no issues with the RAM. So I am left asking WTF? (I am not referring to the World Trade Federation) Did I simply beat it into submission? Thats what my home PC sometimes does. I move the RAM around to get it to boot up. Next time it fails I move the RAM back again . With RAM tests , the RAM (or MB) has to be quite bad for it show show up as faulty . RAM tests may never show a fail on intermittent faults |
1101 (13337) | ||
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