he did get a tone for a bit...

BoXXi, if you happen to Pull those two connectors and this is an AT and not a ATX with a single PSU connector, make sure you reinstall them with the black wires in each of the connectors next to each other or you probably **will** fry you system when you turn it on.


I can not find the error tones for the SA? bios used in his motherboard and Abit doesn't have a thing on their site which I can find.

the CMOS battery shouldn't stop juice from flowing as having it installed completes the circuit.

the AT power supply cables connecting to the motherboard should not be able to come loose on their won unless the snap clips have been broken or mangled in some fashion.

if swapping out the CMOS battery does not in fact work personally I would cut out doing anything but lock step trouble shooting, anything is guess work on a possibility of a hit with many misses in between.

BoXXi, if you do not have the Motherboard Booklet anymore you can download the PDF from Abit, follow the trouble shooting steps in that and you will probably find you computers problem faster at this point.

Separate it into their own groups, Cable's Connector's Fan's LED's PSU, RAM CPU VIDEO PSU, add on CARDS PSU BIOS configuration.

You can try swapping your Monitor to see if anything comes across the screen with a different one installed. You can swap your keyboard, some systems refuse to do squat without a Keyboard installed, though I would think that would be an additive effect more so than a root cause.

You could also try swapping the power cables from the wall to the PSU as it could be something as silly as the power cable you are plugging into the wall and into the back of the PSU having one or both sockets too loose to carry the required juice to get it as far as it was before even when not fully booting (not so much at the wall, but in the back of the PSU)

anyway...
hope it all comes together for you soonest!

hmmm, must have posted the last time in insvisable text

Turn off the computer, Unplug the PSU, pull all cables and cards out of the system, disconnect the drives power connectors, leaving the CPU, CPU FAN, RAM installed.

Make sure the Power LED, Turbo LED, HDD LED, Sound, ReSet and Power connectors are plugged in correctly and not reversed.

Boot and see if you get the BIOS post boot info on your Display.

If not, rock ram back and forth in socket once.

Try again.


(something to consider:If not booting then install the ram in another system to make sure it did not get zapped some how, the same with the cpu. You should be able to take them to a local computer store (single shop not outlet) and they will probably check them for you.
)

If it does give you text error on the display or a tone error then you are getting to the bios without question.

With tone and video, then you vid card is fine.

With tone only, your video card is not functioning for some reason, try another.

The error should be something along the lines that the system could not find ROMBIOS of some such.

Shut down, insert ribbon cable and make sure it is not upside down, insert power cable.

Boot again and hit "ESC or DEL" and go into your CMOS settings and set the 1st drive to auto detect.

F10 to save and exit for reboot.

Should boot and see drive...

If not, install another drive as C that you know is good and the one in question as D.

Boot and enter into CMOS settings, set drive 2 to auto detect.

Boot again and see if it runs through identifying the new C drive correctly.

If not, your BIOS chip might be faulty, or the IDE port Channel 0 (1), which could be the port (socket) or the motherboard (doubtful)....

If the drive connects directly to the motherboard, purchase a secondary IDE Card and install it. I would suggest connecting to the second channel on the motherboard, but if one went bed the other is probably going to go bad also in short order.

..........

If the drive boots, add your cards one at a time and boot between each card added to make sure the system is not hosing up.

Also, if AGP, of VESA video, do not install a card in the PCI slot right below the Video card, the next slot down shares the buse and it can cause problems.

Another thing to look out for is NIC's and Sound cards, you might have to play card shuffle to get everything to play nice on the buse, but once it is done everything should be ok.

As far as throing it away only you can decide that, is it worth your time? and, is it worth you putting more money into if you find you need more than a battery?
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np BoXXi, I know how it can get when theses things happen and all the info isn't handy or able to be found. Yes, I see that with the manual, I downloaded the PDF fom Abit in hope they would have something on the Error tones no joy...

something that could be happening here which would do this and lead to hours of trouble shooting and not be found unless looked for would be the motherboard it self.

Some times in transit the case can be bounced around enough to actually let the momboard shift on it's stands so that the momboard shorts, or one of the addon cards shorts.

Pulling the cards and still having the problem removes the cards being shorted from being a possibility. But, unless they used the paper washers with the stands (brass not the plastic ones) then it could shift and short. while you have the cards out you might want to see if you can push the momboard and move it at all on the stands. If you can, you want to make sure that no traces or gold comes into contact with the screw heads of the case in any manner. There might be a mental ring/boss where the screw goes through the momboard which is common, what your looking for is any flaked coating which allows traces to contact metal...

I can post the lock step (point by point) trouble shooting process if you like and want to go through it. One thing about something like this happening is you do learn a lot about systems which is actually how most tech's start out if you ask them "My computer screwed up and support sucked, or, the warrent was run out"

It's o.k. John.... I can follow the steps you outlined above..... not a problem, no need to post them. If necessary, to get at the data on the HDD, I can just throw it into this sytem and get at it that way. Time is also precious at the moment, and I can't spare too much on this. I wish I knew as much you do though!!! hehe 

Bryan it just means I've screwed up more

Is your case fan running? ....and how dirty is that CPU fan?

No smells, ( I know the smell you mean John) Case fan is running fine. (PSU is quite new in this case, about 6months old) CPU fan IS pretty dirty, I have cleaned it up a bit, gonna try it again.

Yeah, John...it's a smell you don't forget...

I'm not real concerned about the CPU fan....most 233's came down the pike without them and Intel's only throttle down versus burning up, but if the case fan isn't running, I agreed with you that it's most likely the PSU heading south....

I know this is something simple....just can't put my finger on it......

CPU fan not working means the PSU isn't passing any power out - which on an older model like that probably means the PSU is the problem...as IPlural has already suggested - make sure you disconnect EVERYTHING from the PSU in the case...I've had many times when a blown floppy or HDD, or even a faulty reset switch on the case can stop the PSU from starting up.

With any diagnostics like this, if you've tried the basics (which you have) then go back to basics. Empty the case if needed, connect the PSU to the hard disk and see if it spins up. If it doesn't then the PSU or the HDD are at fault.

There's a small fuse inside most PSU, which can blow easily...it's not a user servicable part and I'd certainly not recomend anyone open up a PSU unless you seriously know what you're doing....but, the fuse is sometimes all it needs replacing. I'll stress again though, if it's the PSU, just get a replacement or borrow one from somewhere to see if there's other faults too.

Hey John.....what about the power switch connecter at the bottom of the board?


Thought you may have shot the thing Bryan.....check the connecters at the bottom of the board...






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power switch connectors seem o.k. Gary.

But surely, If no one has been inside the case, they cant be reversed or in the wrong place, as they would still be in the same place as when it left me in working condition. I have checked everything is seated properly, so I guess it must be a major component like the cpu or the board.