Diagnose This PC!
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:30 pm
Gang,
Cleaning out our storage area here when there was nothing else to do earlier (The guy who lived here before hand was a computer guy too, I think - lot's of crap) and I found a PC, sans power supply, nestled deep in the bowels of the space.
Here's the specs and info on it:
Back of the PC has the label of
"Future Power CT6490" - Googled and found 1 site with ZERO info about this thing.
64mb ram (I believe, 2 sticks, it's a circa 1998-99 PC, usually means 2 x 32mb sticks - no labels on the ram though)
Motherboard has this in the FCC info "Daewoo C8649M"
It's a Celeron 366, mATX form factor, onboard sound and Trident video.
For the ports it has 2 PS2, 2 USB, 1 serial, 1 Video port, sound/game ports
Ok, now let's get on with that I've done so far. I went through my parts bin and pulled out an old 2.1gb hdd, CD-Rom, NIC, and PSU. The PSU is a fullsize ATX, but the case is meant for only a mATX PSU, so I had to do some creative work involving duct tape (To be honest, it looks pretty slick. The PSU is on top of the case upside down, so the fan can still run, and it's duct taped down and all. If I felt ambitous, I'd pull out the dremel and mod the case cover so that it could fit on top with the PSU there hehe).
I plug it all in, hit the power button on the PC, and nothing. No noise, no lights, no PSU fan, just dead. I thought it might be a faulty PSU, so I undid the connections, ran a jumper to short the PSU's power-on line and powered it up. It kicked on fine, and the cd-rom, hdd, fans and psu fan worked fine. So I unplug the PSU, reconnect the ATX plug, and plug it back in. Now without me even touching the case switch the system kicks on. The CPU fan starts spinning, so I know the board's getting power now. So I hit the switch ont he KVM to move over to this thing, and I have nothing. No video. No beeps.
Hit the switch on the case to turn off the power, which didn't work forcing me to physically unplug the PSU from the wall. I first checked all the jumpers (there's a label placed conveniently on the cover, showing jumper positions to enable/disable various thing) to make sure everything is set correctly (Onboard video on, check. Onboard sound on, check. CMOS jumper not in CLEAR position, check.). I pulled out the NIC in case that's doing something it shouldn't and power it on again. Still nothing. I reseat the RAM and CPU. Still nothing. Unplugged the CD-ROM and HDD, still nothing.
I plug it in without connecting the video.. Nothing. Plug it in without video and without any ram. STILL NOTHING.
I'm not getting any video, any beeps, anything at all. The CPU fan works, so I know the mb is getting power (Not 110% positive, as it's not an end all be all indicator, but it's all I have on this board).
Basically, I'm at my wits end - as I'm unsure of what else I can do to try to figure out the problem with this thing. I suppose since I found it in the storage locker, with a power supply, that perhaps it met it's demise via a lightning strike or something along those lines.
Do any of you have any other suggestions on how to diagnose this thing, or should I just bite the bullet and consider the prior resident here a bit weird and refused to throw anything away (I did find like 40 empty coffee cans, 4 years of PC mags, scrap wood, and the back seat from a van or SUV, among other things).
I'd hate to toss it out if it's somewhat servicable as it'd make a nice test box for me (I do a lot of stuff for FreeDOS hehe). I don't even have a way of testing to see if the ram or CPU still work - as those are parts I could always use hehe.
Cleaning out our storage area here when there was nothing else to do earlier (The guy who lived here before hand was a computer guy too, I think - lot's of crap) and I found a PC, sans power supply, nestled deep in the bowels of the space.
Here's the specs and info on it:
Back of the PC has the label of
"Future Power CT6490" - Googled and found 1 site with ZERO info about this thing.
64mb ram (I believe, 2 sticks, it's a circa 1998-99 PC, usually means 2 x 32mb sticks - no labels on the ram though)
Motherboard has this in the FCC info "Daewoo C8649M"
It's a Celeron 366, mATX form factor, onboard sound and Trident video.
For the ports it has 2 PS2, 2 USB, 1 serial, 1 Video port, sound/game ports
Ok, now let's get on with that I've done so far. I went through my parts bin and pulled out an old 2.1gb hdd, CD-Rom, NIC, and PSU. The PSU is a fullsize ATX, but the case is meant for only a mATX PSU, so I had to do some creative work involving duct tape (To be honest, it looks pretty slick. The PSU is on top of the case upside down, so the fan can still run, and it's duct taped down and all. If I felt ambitous, I'd pull out the dremel and mod the case cover so that it could fit on top with the PSU there hehe).
I plug it all in, hit the power button on the PC, and nothing. No noise, no lights, no PSU fan, just dead. I thought it might be a faulty PSU, so I undid the connections, ran a jumper to short the PSU's power-on line and powered it up. It kicked on fine, and the cd-rom, hdd, fans and psu fan worked fine. So I unplug the PSU, reconnect the ATX plug, and plug it back in. Now without me even touching the case switch the system kicks on. The CPU fan starts spinning, so I know the board's getting power now. So I hit the switch ont he KVM to move over to this thing, and I have nothing. No video. No beeps.
Hit the switch on the case to turn off the power, which didn't work forcing me to physically unplug the PSU from the wall. I first checked all the jumpers (there's a label placed conveniently on the cover, showing jumper positions to enable/disable various thing) to make sure everything is set correctly (Onboard video on, check. Onboard sound on, check. CMOS jumper not in CLEAR position, check.). I pulled out the NIC in case that's doing something it shouldn't and power it on again. Still nothing. I reseat the RAM and CPU. Still nothing. Unplugged the CD-ROM and HDD, still nothing.
I plug it in without connecting the video.. Nothing. Plug it in without video and without any ram. STILL NOTHING.
I'm not getting any video, any beeps, anything at all. The CPU fan works, so I know the mb is getting power (Not 110% positive, as it's not an end all be all indicator, but it's all I have on this board).
Basically, I'm at my wits end - as I'm unsure of what else I can do to try to figure out the problem with this thing. I suppose since I found it in the storage locker, with a power supply, that perhaps it met it's demise via a lightning strike or something along those lines.
Do any of you have any other suggestions on how to diagnose this thing, or should I just bite the bullet and consider the prior resident here a bit weird and refused to throw anything away (I did find like 40 empty coffee cans, 4 years of PC mags, scrap wood, and the back seat from a van or SUV, among other things).
I'd hate to toss it out if it's somewhat servicable as it'd make a nice test box for me (I do a lot of stuff for FreeDOS hehe). I don't even have a way of testing to see if the ram or CPU still work - as those are parts I could always use hehe.