conputer turn on problem

[tempus fugit]

Hey all;

My computer is argumentatve about booting. Sometimes it fires right up,
other times I have to turn the switch off at the back and push the power
button over and over to get it to boot. The weird thing is, it always turns
ON, i.e., the drives fire up and the green light on the front goes on, it
just won't boot. The motherboard is a ECS K7S5A and the power supply is an
Antec. Another oddity - the last board I had was an ECS K7S5A and it worked
fine until it started doing the same thing, except I could never get it to
boot.

I know that mobos are basically unserviceable, but I wonder if this might be
something easy to get at and fix. I wondered about the switch on the case,
but, as I said, it always powers up, just doesn't always boot.

Thanks

 

[Ken]

Hey all;

My computer is argumentatve about booting. Sometimes it fires right up,
other times I have to turn the switch off at the back and push the power
button over and over to get it to boot. The weird thing is, it always turns
ON, i.e., the drives fire up and the green light on the front goes on, it
just won't boot. The motherboard is a ECS K7S5A and the power supply is an
Antec. Another oddity - the last board I had was an ECS K7S5A and it worked
fine until it started doing the same thing, except I could never get it to
boot.

I know that mobos are basically unserviceable, but I wonder if this might be
something easy to get at and fix. I wondered about the switch on the case,
but, as I said, it always powers up, just doesn't always boot.

Thanks

Are you aware that this is a common problem with this model MB???
There are newsgroups that might be helpful where this is a common topic:
http://p199.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum

 

[tempus fugit]

I kind of figured....
Thanks though - I'll check out that forum.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Hey all;

My computer is argumentatve about booting. Sometimes it fires right up,
other times I have to turn the switch off at the back and push the power
button over and over to get it to boot. The weird thing is, it always turns
ON, i.e., the drives fire up and the green light on the front goes on, it
just won't boot. The motherboard is a ECS K7S5A and the power supply is an
Antec. Another oddity - the last board I had was an ECS K7S5A and it worked
fine until it started doing the same thing, except I could never get it to
boot.

I know that mobos are basically unserviceable, but I wonder if this might be
something easy to get at and fix. I wondered about the switch on the case,
but, as I said, it always powers up, just doesn't always boot.

Thanks

Hi...

With one booting erratically and the other not booting
at all, I suspect that you're over-clocking them.

Don't. It's not worth it. Really not worth it with
AMD's.

And if you still have the "unbootable" one, power it down,
short the cmos jumper for a few minutes, put the jumper
back as it was, and power it up again. Good chance it'll
happily boot.

Take care.

Ken

 

[tempus fugit]

Actually, I'm not overclocking.
I don't remember if tried the CMOS on the last one (it was a little while
ago), but I think I did with to no effect.

 

[Art]

Ever think of monitoring the voltages being produced by the power supply
during post and boot routines?? Is it possible that one of the voltages is
dropping out a bit??
Have seen many computer problems specifically related to the accuracy of the
supplied voltages from the supplies. Both too high and too low are culprits.
Not to talk about the castrophic failures that tend to foul up everything
from the CPU down to the plug in modems.

 

[rstlne]

Hi...

With one booting erratically and the other not booting
at all, I suspect that you're over-clocking them.

Don't. It's not worth it. Really not worth it with
AMD's.

Guess that makes you not-qualified to post..

AMD 60w chip Oc's 20% out of box
Intels 120w chips Oc's (no, they dont make it, the plastic mounts melt)

 

[Ross Herbert]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 12:01:39 -0400, "tempus fugit"

|Hey all;
|
|My computer is argumentatve about booting. Sometimes it fires right up,
|other times I have to turn the switch off at the back and push the power
|button over and over to get it to boot. The weird thing is, it always turns
|ON, i.e., the drives fire up and the green light on the front goes on, it
|just won't boot. The motherboard is a ECS K7S5A and the power supply is an
|Antec. Another oddity - the last board I had was an ECS K7S5A and it worked
|fine until it started doing the same thing, except I could never get it to
|boot.
|
|I know that mobos are basically unserviceable, but I wonder if this might be
|something easy to get at and fix. I wondered about the switch on the case,
|but, as I said, it always powers up, just doesn't always boot.
|
|Thanks
|

It is highly likely that both of you ECS K7S5A boards are plagued by
the "electrolytic capacitor scam" and all of the suspect units on the
m/b should be replaced.

See this forum item
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic41340.html

I have an MSI 815e Pro board which just recently suffered from similar
symptoms but in my case the unit would power down as soon as the disc
drives put an appreciable load on the psu, and then immediately power
up again. Thius cycle repeated endlessly.

After replacing all the main caps on the m/b the problem became less
but still happened occasionally. I subsequently discovered an
electrolytic cap in the PSU had gone dry and after replacing this my
pc worked fine thereafter.

Ross H

 

[~]

it could be that you need a bigger power supply.

somewhere i heard that shut down problems are caused by overloaded
power supply too.

 

[Ross Herbert]

|it could be that you need a bigger power supply.
|
|somewhere i heard that shut down problems are caused by overloaded
|power supply too.

Highly unlikely to be the case. It is more likely that if the PSU were
the problem it would be because one or more electrolytics in the PSU
were developing high ESR thus causing it to shut down with a lower
than normal load applied.

 

[Wayne Tiffany]

Another possibility is that of leaking caps on the MB - I had to change 15
on mine. Look for bulged tops and/or brown trails. http://www.badcaps.net/
You can also search this area for past discussions.

WT

 

[tempus fugit]

I'll check it out. This board had this problem from the getgo - right off
the 1st install, though. For other posters, the PS is adequate if not moreso
in this case - an Antec 350w (i'm only running an Athlon 950 with 2 HD,
DVDrom, CDburner, and 384 megs of RAM.

 

[Ross Herbert]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 07:25:34 -0500, "Wayne Tiffany"

|Another possibility is that of leaking caps on the MB - I had to change 15
|on mine. Look for bulged tops and/or brown trails. http://www.badcaps.net/
|You can also search this area for past discussions.
|
I mentioned this as the most likely cause in my first post...