[mdlug] Help diagnosing hardware problem - not solved

[Robert Adkins]

Did you pop out the CMOS battery for about 5 minutes and then reapply power?
I have found that sometimes, the BIOS can become wonky and clearing it via
battery drain can rectify the issue. (That still doesn't mean that the old
Power Supply is good, it could have sent the wrong voltage for the correct
amount of time to toss the BIOS off.)

Barring that, straight DDR RAM is no longer usable on modern motherboards.
It's either DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. So replacing the MB and CPU will require a RAM
upgrade.

Check out Computer Direct on John R. They have two Motherboard CPU combos
available that with buying a 1GB stick of DDR2 RAM will be right around $100
to $120. Hardware prices are very inexpensive these days.

Later,
Rob



> -----Original Message-----
> From: mdlug-bounces at mdlug.org 
> [mailto:mdlug-bounces at mdlug.org] On Behalf Of Ingles, Raymond
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 7:51 AM
> To: MDLUG's Main discussion list
> Subject: Re: [mdlug] Help diagnosing hardware problem - not solved
> 
> > From: Ingles, Raymond
> 
> >  I went over last night, and checked things out. At that point, it
> would
> > boot through the BIOS and the boot loader, but would no longer even
> get
> > to the graphical login screen. Once the monitor said "no signal", it
> was
> > unresponsive to keyboard input.
>  
> >  At that point I figured it was either the video card, the power
> supply,
> > or the motherboard.
> 
>  Well, replacing the power supply made no difference in the behavior.
> It's either the video card or the motherboard... but finding 
> an AGP card these days isn't easy, and would be a waste if it 
> turned out to be the motherboard.
> 
>  So... I'll be looking at getting a new MB and video card, 
> along with probably a new CPU. Should be able to keep the DDR 
> RAM. My proposed budget is around $150, ideally less. Any 
> suggestions? It doesn't need to be top-of-the-line in speed - 
> what they *already* have is overkill - it just needs to be reliable.
> 
>  Sincerely,
> 
>  Ray Ingles                                       (313) 227-2317
> 
>    Microsoft Windows - It could be worse, but it'll take time.
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