PCA Forums

I still have two systems down, I'm going bonkers here!

The one system is a Shuttle AK39N with a XP1700 Cpu, the other is a Biostar M7NCD with a Barton Xp2500 CPU.

The Shuttle!
It boots and about the time it gets to the user ID/password screen in W2K the monitor pops up with a no signal message. Sometimes it does it sooner or later but about then is average.
OK, I swapped about everything.
Booting with nothing but ram, cpu, video card, I got it working and could sit in Bios watching the temps and volts for a long time, no problem. I put the old parts back in one at a time, no problem. I connect all the drives, no problem. I put it back on the kid's desk no problem. I turn it on, it booted, she came home from school used it for hours fine. Next day she turns it on, it gets to password/id screen and looses video signal again! Never can get it to boot up and run, always lost video, monitor displays message check cable etc.. no signal detected.
OK, I gutted the thing again. I finaly thought it was the power supply. I been installing ram and video card from another system I know is good. So here we go really nuts! I try to boot her system, no video about 3-6 times in a row! I install a different P/s and I get a full working system, boots perfect about 6 times. I put her P/s back in and it has no video signal on the very first boot and 5 more tries. GREAT, I found the problem right, so I put in the working P/s. It boots 4-6 times and runs everything as it should. I set everything back up on her desk, connect surround sound speakers, boot up, perfect. I bootup and 4-6 times all the way into the desktop and mess around a bit, NO PROBLEM. So I play Starwars and U2T ALL NIGHT LONG from 4am till 3PM when she gets home from school, she plays games, types letters, edits photos, etc... untill bedtime. 4am till 10pm, perfect!
Today she turns it on and no !@$%@^%#@^ video signal detected!!!!
Now when I was swapping P/S, everything else was exactly the same. With this P/s it booted and had video and I could get to bios and sit for hours, with the other P/s I had no signal to even get into Bios. That was with nothing else, just ram and video. This is not a gamer system, ATI Radeon 7500 PCI video card. I installed a known to be good 256MB DDR ram and a ATI 4MB All in Wonder pci video capture card also, and it would not have video with those.
Right now it is stripped down and running with video just fine again, System board is sitting on the cardboard box it came in on top of the side of the system case!!!
It can't be heat, It worked fine from 4am to 10pm (almost 16 hours! ) then it would not bootup when cold after sitting 16 hours!
No domed caps or brown crud under any either. She learned tonight how to tear down her own system
I went over that board with a magnifier, REALLY, no visual defects I can find anywhere, front, back, under caps, cap tops, nothing.

Biostar system,
It won't boot. It had a problem that the CPU fan seemed to be speeding up and slowing down. Like turning it on and off and on agian. Maybe like a stuck switch? I've swapped P/s on that one also. When it was acting like that I check the volts on the molex and they were up and down like turning it on and off.
Nothing I did or swapped helped on that either. Tonight Scooby also learned to tear down that system
System board on the box it came in sitting on the side of the case, nothing but ram and video card, XP2500 Cpu. I finaly found my artic silver so tonight I pulled the cpu. Does not look or smell burnt, I gooped it and put it back in. Now the system turns on and CPU fan runs normal, no more reving up and down. No video! It's been sitting there 2 hours now with fan running fine, monitor does not even see it connected. I know the video card is good! Ram is GOOD.

Well a bit of update on the Biostar before clicking post
It started the fan reving agian fast/slow/fast. I just checked agian, no video still and the fan speed problem. I just let it sit there running for a long time. Southbridge is pretty hot (Nforce 2 I think) the heat sink on the northbridge is cold to the touch though.

Any ideas how to fix either of these or what the heck is wrong with them?
The Biostar is just not working, ok I can live with that I geuss if need be. The shuttle is crazy though!!!!

I dought I will buy Shuttle ever agian if this board is bad. It's the third board on one purchase! First one was DOA replaced free from Newegg but cost me shipping, second one lasted just less than a year, also replaced free buy Newegg but cost me shiiping, this one is the third and my RMA time is expired. If the board went bad Shuttle has a very bad image with me!! My Iwill XP 333 has been perfect! I bought the First Shuttle and the Iwill XP333 on the same order!

I could swap the Xp1700 (266mhz) CPU into the Biostar board, but can I UNDER CLOCK the 333FSB XP2500 into the Shuttle board which is 266Mhz?

I really have no need to upgrade either system if I can get them working, they were great as is or as was.
If I have to buy a system board, I guess I would go 64 bit and a CPU also, but much rather get these working again! I been looking at boards to buy one, it looks like selection is getting low for these Cpu's now. The board costs about the same rather for these cpu's or for 64bit so only extra cost is the CPU itself I geuss. So why bother buying 2 new boards?
I don't have the money for 2 new systems though, so I really need at least one, preferably both systems fixed!

maybe i missed this, but did you try a different monitor on the shuttle? sounded like you swapped everything else but that. it could just be the monitor.

On the Shuttle I'm thinking some issue with Windows. It's curious that it waits until the password screen. Could be a problem with ACPI or the video driver or the AGP mobo driver.

I'd make an image of the drive and then wipe it and do a clean OS install and see if that fixes the problem. If it doesn't then I have to think you have a mobo issue (bad AGP slot, northbridge problem).

Maybe the northbridge is overheating?

Nothing worse than an intermittent problem.

Biostar sounds like a dead mobo, but I'm suspicious that the PSU may have damaged it.

Thanks.

On the shuttle,
I have the no video problem even without hard drive. When it did not work to begin with on the bench it was on a different monitor and still had the same problem. Even on my other monitor and no drives a times I could not get into even Bios. But once I can get there it seems to keep working when all re-assembled until the next day.

When I get it working on the bench striped to bare bones I then install the drives etc... And I reboot after installing each part.
So it is like it either works or it don't. If it don't work on the kids desk all put together, then it won't work everytime it is rebooted. When it works on the bench it does work everytime I reboot.
It only works after I rip it apart though, I mean just moving it does not make it work, it won't work on the bench either till I tear it down and swap parts. But once it is working I can put all the same parts back in and it still works!
Last night it was working all stripped down. I connected the hard drive and have rebooted about 20 times now at least. perfect everytime. The board is sitting on a box, not in the case. We are about to put it back together again.
Last time I got it working it worked perfect on her desk rebooted a bunch of times then ran that 16 hours, but then the next day would not boot on the first try or anytime after that.

I had though about heat, but it ran 16 hours fine and should have been hot then, but on a cold boot the next day is when it would not work again and everything should have been cold then after sitting about 16 hours.
After rebooting a bunch and running it fine last night, and always being the next day it fails to work again I just let it sit on the bench. Today it is booting fine everytime all the way into windows, at least a dozen times or more. We are about to put it back together again in the case.

It's a PCI video card and the DDR Ram has been 256MB and 512MB sticks at various times, only one stick but either one. When it was not working it also did not work with a different video card.

I pulled the battery and shorted the pins so Bios should be reset to whatever factory defaults were, I dought the problem was in bios since it was the same all the time, but I reset it anyway.
This system has not been overclocked or anythng either.

Maybe the shuttle is just a buggy M/B!

After all that time running on the bech and reboots, then installed in the case and still working many reboots, it failed today to boot.

It was as far as I knew just a lost video problem, that's all it ever did to me! Today Scooby pressed the button, it booted almost to the ID/Password screen then shut down. This time was maybe like a sleep mode thing. Green LED on system board was on but nothing else, no fans anywhere etc..
When I pressed and held the power switch it shut down and turned off the led on the system board.
I pressed the switch again, it booted and she used it all night perfectly. Actaully she used it awhile and we shut it down and rebooted fine several times then she used it all night.
She said it shut down like that before also, although all I knew about was a lost video and the fans were still running then for me.

It will be another day next time it's booted, shall we take bets how it acts, boots, half boots, no boot, 3 tries to get a boot