ufcrusher

I have never finished transfering my old workhourse P3-500 over to our new system but had it hooked up as a remote system accessed through our network. Last week my wife informed me that she was having trouble accessing the system and I told her I would get to it asap. Today, I finally hook up a monitor to the system and sure enough its acting up.

First attempt to boot - Doesnt even enter Bios, just the sub screen stating MICRON comes up.
Second attempt to boot - Same thing
Third attempt to boot - Finally enters Bios, hangs halfway through boot
Fourth attempt - Good as gold...I am on and transfering away to stop the need to use the old system remotely. All of the sudden, the computer freezes, requiring me to reboot it.
Fifth through tenth attempt to boot - bupkis....nothing but that lovely Micron screen.

This system is a dual operating system one, running XP pro and Win98Se...it automatically defaults to XP and they are contained on separate drives...it ran flawlessly for years even to the day where I set up the new computer.

For the life of me, I cant figure out what could cause it. I dont think its the BIos as its not even getting into the Bios...doesnt power on any USB's or anything. The machine is powered up though.

Any ideas? Thanks.

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LPMiller

bad ram could cause it, or the mainboard is dying.

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MikeD

Can you boot to Last Known Good Config? How about Safe Mode?

LP is right on the RAM. Take it and re-seat it; if you have more than one stick, try booting with just one to see if the other is bad.

If you do get in, get the data you need off of it ASAP. You could always slave the drive in another box as well.

Good luck!

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brainsmile

I was thinking motherboard

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ceeka

Have you tried changing the battery that keeps the bios memory?

Jeffbx

Yeah, most likely MB. If it's not even POSTing, you MB is dead/dying.

I'd say your best bet is to yank the HD out of there & mount it as a secondary in your other machine. Then transfer your data to the new box, and throw the rest of that P3 into the trash.

hoey222

ya mobo or cpu. sometimes a bad cpu will prevent you from POST-ing...either way - your hard drive should still be intact. you could just slave it to the newer system to get the stuff off of it.

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ufcrusher

Unfortunately I will have to buy a new external case as the Profile system doesnt really allow me to do anything hands on...but hey, it was free so who is going to complain, right?

InfiniteNothing

I recently had similar problems (no POST sometimes). It took a long time to troubleshoot but it was a bad ide cable (I was || close to buying a new mobo/cpu). Other things I tried and might work for you: swap power supply, clear cmos, check cables, try minimal boot (1 HD (check jumpers, cs has been most stable for me),1 ram,vid card,ps)