Help help! PC flucked!

Bard · 07-08-2001 10:08pm #1

Not mine, but a friends... I hope someone can help! - Here's my account of the events leading up to now:-

First off, Windows (98) was working ok and all was hunky dory. He goes away for two weeks (nobody touches the PC in the interim) and comes back to find its no longer recognising the modem. Tries reinstalling it, it doesnt detet it. Reboots, and Windows does not load, - in fact it seems that the hard drive will now not boot (even though no error messages are coming up and the Hard Drive IS being picked up by the system on startup) - it's just sitting there doing nothing (after the standard memory and hardware check - "POST sequence"? - during which the memory, the Hard Drive and CD-ROM drive are correctly detected). Opens it up, checks that everything is plugged in solidly and securely and that nothing is loose. Nothing is. Now suspicious that the Hard Drive might have had a head crash, as he tries the Hard Drive in another PC and the same happens. Hopes that the data will be retrievable somehow (by a professional) as there was important stuff on it. Notices that the "PC Speaker" connector is loose and plugs it into the "PC Speaker" section of the motherboard. Puts PC back together (case cover on, leads back in, etc.), and plugs it back in. Switches on, - PC goes ballistic,- shows nothing on monitor and PC speaker is now beeping constantly.

Switches off PC and goes outside for a smoke and a nervous breakdown.

Any ideas anyone?

The Hard Drive of this PC has some very important data on it and I'd really hope I can get it back working again. I've had a look at it and I'm a bit puzzled... (I don't really know what the various types of beeps during the initial startup check mean) - Worst case - does anyone know a company that retrieve data from a 'shagged' hard drive? - I think the boot sector itself may have become damaged but I suspect the vast majority of the data is still intact.

'ellllppp!!!

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 07-08-2001).]

phaxx · 07-08-2001 10:20pm

Remove the HDD, put it in another machine, like some linux box or something. It's better at dealing with errors and things, in my experience. Try to put the data onto cd or something.

If the data is /really/ important, I remember being told there is a data recovery company in Dublin, check the golden pages. (goldenpages.ie)

edit:
Look up the "beepcodes" for that bios/motherboard, a little googlage should turn something up.

[This message has been edited by phaxx (edited 07-08-2001).]

Bard · 07-08-2001 10:23pm

I don't have a Linux box to play with unfortunately...

Can anyone tell me what it means when I get constant beeping (well... "<beep> ... <beep> ... <beep>..." ad infinitum) and no picture when I switch on?

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Supercell · 07-08-2001 10:41pm

Beeps are important, whats the sequence? one long two short, or three beeps pause, then three beeps, etc..more info needed (what mobo?)

Bard · 07-08-2001 10:45pm

The beeps are infinite and it's all it does. Beep <pause> Beep <pause> Beep (etc.) - beep and pause each taking less than 1/2 a second (I think... I'm at my own place now - will have to take another look at it tomorrow)

Snowbat · 07-08-2001 10:50pm

Depends on the bios, but usually it means the system cannot access the RAM or the video card - try removing and reseating both.

Regarding the hard disk, install it in another PC, boot from a floppy, and run fdisk/mbr at the prompt. This rewrites the boot sector and may render it usable again.

Supercell · 07-08-2001 10:51pm

Also, do the beeps go away when the modem is pulled? If so, reseat it in another slot, if it still does it, then the modems probably been fried.
Fried modems (winmodems) often cause the system not to boot at all, bar the green power light in my eperience, which does fit in what you have described.
Suspect this machine has been subject to a power surge while he was away, sometimes you can retrieve data from the hard drive when its slaved off another ,even though it isntcapable of a sustained read operation such as during booting windows(ie the master is the boot drive)

b20uvkft6m5xwg · 07-08-2001 11:06pm

Originally posted by Bard:

First off, Windows (98) was working ok and all was hunky dory. He goes away for two weeks (nobody touches the PC in the interim) and comes back to find its no longer recognising the modem.

Let that be a lesson to everyone....
Dont leave your PC unaccompanied for 2 weeks.
They have feelings too!!

80p.
SAVE CHIP !!

Trojan · 07-08-2001 11:13pm

Beeps on power up are generally a POST (power-on self test).

The 1st thing you check for is that ram, cpu, all cards and ide cables are plugged in properly, usually thats the fault.

If not, then you've got some h/w failure somewhere, somethings failing... if its the modem its likely lightening hit it... happened 3 (yeah three) times to me... ****in Mayo

Al.

Bard · 07-08-2001 11:26pm

The modem hadn't been plugged into the phone line during the time it was left unattended ... anyway - I yanked the modem altogether, reseated the memory (making sure it was in solidly... it was) and the graphics card (also in solidly).

restarted with the case still open, as I'd noticed a little tiny box with 4 switches on it on the motherboard - switches were in a 1 up, 1 down, 1 up, 1 down config. and I was curious... Beeps came back as I'd expected - no pattern, just beep - beep - beep - beep - same as before ... fiddled with the switches, and when more than two switches were down, the beeps went faster. - left it back the way it was... it's probably nothing...

Anyway- best I can tell you about what mobo it is, etc. is :- it's an Intel motherboard built approx. 5 years ago for a Cyrix 6x86 processor and a standard Award BIOS chip.

I'm not sure about the 'struck by lightning' idea as it WAS working fine the other day (after he got back), apart from it not recognising the modem - which it had done before he left, - but I suppose it's certainly possible. I just discovered that everything in the house EXCEPT THIS P.C. had been unplugged while he was away... (d'oh!).

OK- it looks like time to call in the professionals, as the data on the HD *IS* vitally important. But!... Whoya gonna call? Does anyone have any recommendations?

"Artur" need not apply

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 07-08-2001).]

Stonemason · 07-08-2001 11:44pm

LOL

Poor old arthur

have a quick look at the below may narrow the feild abit.As for the box with switches id say it was ya dips these are used for specific setting for you cpu ie 123456 1up 2up 3down 4down 5up 6down for a CPU X fbs X and ya shouldnt be fiddling with knobs if you dont know what they do

If you still have your motherboard manual or know the maker and name you should be able to find out what switches should be where for your particualar CPU.That said its very unlikely to be this as its very hard to inadvertantly alter these switches.Anyway heres the link have a gander G/L

Stone

http://www.award.com/

Trojan · 07-08-2001 11:57pm

Those "little switches" are prolly jumpers, I hope you didnt blow the CPU j00 muppet!

Anyways don't worry too much about the HDD, just throw it into another winblows machine, it'll be grand (hopefully) unless you fúcked up really bad...

Try and see if you can figure what the jumpers should be set to.

Al.

Bard · 08-08-2001 12:08am

Found nothing useful on award.com - they're now a part of "Phoenix" apparently... so it's all at phoenix.com

A search on POST codes brought up this - frankly it's the kind of stuff that threatens to make my head explode, so I think I'll just end up handing in the PC to a reputable company such as Beltronics and let them sort it out instead of ballsing it up even further myself

Thanks lads...

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Bard · 08-08-2001 12:13am

Originally posted by Trojan:
Those "little switches" are prolly jumpers, I hope you didnt blow the CPU j00 muppet!

I know what jumpers are and they're not jumpers. They're a panel of switches on a raised box on the motherboard, and they're set back to the way they were at the start. I have *some* hardware experience - and I don't think those switches had any affect.

Anyways don't worry too much about the HDD, just throw it into another winblows machine, it'll be grand (hopefully) unless you fúcked up really bad...

That was one of the first things I tried - setting it up as a slave on another machine. No joy. Machine wouldn't start up with the HD connected (in any configuration) - started up without it.

Try and see if you can figure what the jumpers should be set to.

What jumpers? The jumper on the HD was set correctly. The ones on the mobo hadn't been touched since the PC had been working correctly.

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Trojan · 08-08-2001 12:13am

dude, taking the hdd out and checking in another machine is a piece of píss, dont spend cash before you check the simple things!

You can spend your well saved money on pints for me instead.

Al.

Gerry · 08-08-2001 12:29am

The dip switches on the board are irrelevant, the problem is that he tried the hard drive in another pc and nothing happened. The pc itself is probably just wrecked due to a power surge, theres no other logical reason for it. Although continuous beeps are usually memory related..

Take everything out of the machine except for the cpu, memory and video card. See if anything happens. Try the hard drive in a few other machines, if that doesn't work, I suppose you will have to find some data recovery company.

Trojan · 08-08-2001 9:20am

Originally posted by Bard:
What jumpers? The jumper on the HD was set correctly. The ones on the mobo hadn't been touched since the PC had been working correctly.

Soz dude, I just didn't parse your post correctly.

Hopefully the harddrive is physically ok, otherwise you'll have to get out the goldenpages like the lad says

Al.

azezil · 08-08-2001 9:58am

Its probably a bit late (n irrelivant!) but u could try copying the system file from another pc (with 98) n bootin it up then.

The pc would have an identity crisis but u should be able to save the data then format it later... worked for me with a NT machine.

"just because you're not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after you!"

azezil · 08-08-2001 3:22pm

try changeing the graphics card... just worked for me!

"just because you're not paraniod, doesn't mean they're not after you!"

seamus · 08-08-2001 4:01pm

Originally posted by Bard:
The modem hadn't been plugged into the phone line during the time it was left unattended ... anyway - I yanked the modem altogether, reseated the memory (making sure it was in solidly... it was) and the graphics card (also in solidly).

restarted with the case still open, as I'd noticed a little tiny box with 4 switches on it on the motherboard - switches were in a 1 up, 1 down, 1 up, 1 down config. and I was curious... Beeps came back as I'd expected - no pattern, just beep - beep - beep - beep - same as before ... fiddled with the switches, and when more than two switches were down, the beeps went faster. - left it back the way it was... it's probably nothing...

Anyway- best I can tell you about what mobo it is, etc. is :- it's an Intel motherboard built approx. 5 years ago for a Cyrix 6x86 processor and a standard Award BIOS chip.

I'm not sure about the 'struck by lightning' idea as it WAS working fine the other day (after he got back), apart from it not recognising the modem - which it had done before he left, - but I suppose it's certainly possible. I just discovered that everything in the house EXCEPT THIS P.C. had been unplugged while he was away... (d'oh!).

OK- it looks like time to call in the professionals, as the data on the HD *IS* vitally important. But!... Whoya gonna call? Does anyone have any recommendations?

"Artur" need not apply

seamus · 08-08-2001 4:03pm

Originally posted by Bard:
The modem hadn't been plugged into the phone line during the time it was left unattended ... anyway - I yanked the modem altogether, reseated the memory (making sure it was in solidly... it was) and the graphics card (also in solidly).

restarted with the case still open, as I'd noticed a little tiny box with 4 switches on it on the motherboard - switches were in a 1 up, 1 down, 1 up, 1 down config. and I was curious... Beeps came back as I'd expected - no pattern, just beep - beep - beep - beep - same as before ... fiddled with the switches, and when more than two switches were down, the beeps went faster. - left it back the way it was... it's probably nothing...

Anyway- best I can tell you about what mobo it is, etc. is :- it's an Intel motherboard built approx. 5 years ago for a Cyrix 6x86 processor and a standard Award BIOS chip.

I'm not sure about the 'struck by lightning' idea as it WAS working fine the other day (after he got back), apart from it not recognising the modem - which it had done before he left, - but I suppose it's certainly possible. I just discovered that everything in the house EXCEPT THIS P.C. had been unplugged while he was away... (d'oh!).

OK- it looks like time to call in the professionals, as the data on the HD *IS* vitally important. But!... Whoya gonna call? Does anyone have any recommendations?

"Artur" need not apply

seamus · 08-08-2001 4:04pm

AHHHHH my comp's going mad!! sorry bout last two, will try do it properly in the next one:

seamus · 08-08-2001 4:11pm

Originally posted by Bard:
I'm not sure about the 'struck by lightning' idea as it WAS working fine the other day (after he got back), apart from it not recognising the modem - which it had done before he left, - but I suppose it's certainly possible. I just discovered that everything in the house EXCEPT THIS P.C. had been unplugged while he was away... (d'oh!).

Anyway, as I wuz trying to say, before this boards.ie computer curse got me, was that the MoBo may have been(but quite unlikely) slightly injured by power surges while your friend was away. MoBo's are very fragile, and work within very low voltage tolerances, so any offset could have done some damage. When the comp was turned back on, the damage could ahve hada cascading effect, which is pretty horrible, cuz everything starts dying, one thing after the other.

Try plug the HD into IDE2 of another computer, and set it as the master, cuz some hardware don't like being made a slave out of. But dont let it try and boot, remove d: or e: or whatever from the boot sequence in the BIOS.

Sorry about the spamming B4 guys

Bard · 08-08-2001 4:30pm

azezil- re copying the system files onto it... I can't even access it - won't boot with it in any machine in any configuration, so that's a no go...

I'd try the option of swapping the GFX card for another one if I had another one to stick in, but frankly I don't think that's the (only) problem here.

seamus- thanks for the feedback but I'd tried all that (tried it as Master, Slave, CS, nothing, everything!) in a couple of other PC's with no joy.

Perhaps, as already mentioned, if I had a Linux machine to mess about with (and knew unix command line options well enough) I could tackle it using that... all I know is that data retrieval can be damn expensive and may not be affordable as an option.

BNC- thanks for the email - the price of £1,000 you said was quoted by that company would be WAY over the top, but I'll probably get in touch with them anyway.

Thanks again, all...

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Bard · 08-08-2001 9:37pm

Alrighty-... the biggest part of the problem, that being retrieving the data on the bollixed hard drive, has been solved. I put it into a Win2K system (which already had 2 HD's, a DVDROM and a CDR drive) in place of the CDR drive.

Windows 2000 picked it up on bootup and told me that there were a sh*tload of errors on the first partition of it (thankfully, all the important data I needed to retrieve was on the 2nd partition) and immediately set about repairing it before finishing booting to the login prompt. I logged in, jigged about a bit with the drive letters (necessitating a reboot), copied all the ultra important files over to my own HD, shut down, removed the HD and plugged back in the CDR, booted up, logged in and backed up the data onto CD.

So, thinks I, - it's not the HD after all that's at fault... RIGHT! - stuck the HD back in the original PC, and borrowing a spare graphics card and memory of identical type to the ones in the original PC, I proceeded to replace the existing graphics card first... no difference... then the memory... no difference... concluding that it's not the HD, graphics card, or memory - and the other peripherals were unplugged, I guessed it was possible that the motherboard or processor itself might be fried. ... but if the mobo had been fried, surely the BIOS chip wouldn't have been able to process the POST test and send back the beeps to the speaker via the mobo?

It's all a little bit confusing really... but I believe that the existing graphics card, memory, modem and HD are ok- so that's the good news... sort of... I'd have preferred, of course, if it were JUST the graphics card that was at fault as they're easily and cheaply replaced.

I'm going to have to hand the box in somewhere for a professional to take a look at it. It's quite likely that the mobo/processor and memory will need replacing if I want to get the system back up and running. The main good thing to come out of it is the fact that none of this essential data (which may have been required by banks and courts and whatever) was actually lost.

Phew

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Patrick · 08-08-2001 10:18pm

Excellent the way you got the data recovered but strange the way only a win2k machine picked it up. Even in the BIOS of the others you tried it should have been picked up...weird. Anyway you have that parted sorted. Earlier you mention that you changed some switches on the a rased box on the mobo. They were most likely dips switchs which control the bus frequencys of the cpu and voltage etc. It's possible that you could have fried the cpu while changing these, especially if you get nothing on the screen now. It seems like the only thing left really since you've changed video and sound.
What type of cpu is it?

phaxx · 08-08-2001 10:28pm

Just a quick note about the way win2k picked it up but not the bios, Linux and other unix based oses really don't give a toss what the bios thinks, they do their own detection and work from there. I had a 66mhz 486 acting as a file server once, it had a 20gb hdd, even though the bios limit was 512mb. Linux just ignored it, saw the full 20gb and was completely happy there. Win2k must ignore what the bios thinks, to a certan extent. I've also had it pick up cd drives and things that the bios didn't.

Bard · 09-08-2001 1:17am

I never said the BIOS didn't pick it up on the Win2K machine - it did pick it up. It didn't get -as far- as the POST checks on the other machines. On the other machine which I'd tried it in (an old Win95 machine - the only other one available to me) it had done the same as the original machine, - i.e.: just sat there beeping at me and not displaying anything on screen.

The processor in the original box is a Cyrix 6x86 - 166Mhz I think. I checked to see that it was seated correctly and it was (when I removed the fan to check that I noticed that the chip had IBM 6x86 stamped on it).

Bard

G'wan... giz a click

Help help! PC flucked!

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