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That system of the wifes I mentioned before turned out to be in the system board for the problem. Now the question is what is the problem??

As is was,
Turn the system on and it appeared to be starting up as normal, fans turn on etc.. everything that normally accurs BEFORE the beep or bois loads.

Then all fans are running and such but system is sitting idle doing nothing with a black screen.
When this hangup first started she would turn the system off and then back on, the second time it was turned on it seemed to boot normally.

Then one day I discovered if you hit the power switch and go get coffee, after several minutes you would get the BEEP and the system booted. Never figured out why. But it seems when you turn on the system it begins to boot, but before bios loads the system will hang for minutes, then it would beep and load normally. Once the system boots everything was fine.

Now the system does not boot at all. The day I started looking inside to see what was up was the last time it booted. I now hit the switch and all the fans run, I never get to bios though.
I checked everything in a different system now, and all parts work fine even the cpu works in my other system. I have installed other parts, ram, cpu, video card, that are known to be working and it still does not get to bios.
I have the system stripped to the bare booting parts now, cpu, ram, video. No drives, modems, network cards or antyhing else are installed.

Any ideas what could be wrong with this board? It is a biostar, M7VIG I think. It has a little red led lit, but I don't recall if it was lit before or not. I was not getting any abnormal beeping before, but now the board is in a case without a speaker.
Pretty sure I reset the bios.

I'll probably order a new board tonight/tomorrow anyway, but really like to know what happened to this one. It did not seem to have anything wrong once it booted, just started taking forever to boot and now does not boot at all. If it had been blown with a surge or popped caps or normal stuff I would not give it a second thought, but this seemed to be a wierd way for it to die.
Also the system was always on a UPS. So it should have had a steady smooth power, not too dirty inside to hold heat, and was pretty well cooled for case fans. No reason I can see for it to die except it was about 3 years old?

I had a similar problem once my mobo would get so far on boot up beep three times and then shut down.

try one of these.

1) try reseting the bios but this time unplug everthing and leave the mobo for a while and instead of using the jumpers remove the battery this should make sure the bios is reset.

2) dust? try giving it a clean.

3) might be a RAM problem, try a different stick.

well thats all i think of if all fails just chuck it in the bin and use the new one.

edit.

just realised you had already tryed new stuff, well just try removing the mobo battery.

sounds like maybe cold boot issues, try pressing reset quickly right after powering up

I did all the normal things and swapped every part now like ram cpu p/s none of that they all work in my other system and this one still does not with the other parts installed.

Billy,
Never had cold boot issues, those kinda built into the system board? Thanks for the suggestion of hitting the reset button, I will give that a try. Something I really don't think I tried yet.

Nope reset switch not help.

I set the system up and tried that, nothing. Fans running, keyboard leds flash and optical mouse lights up. Red led on board burns steady. Power switch will turn system off if you hold it a few seconds.

Other than that, nothing

WHat bugs me on this stuff is when nothing should be wrong. I mean if it where hit by lighting or blew out caps, or a cat knocked a soda into the case I could see that not working. It's when everything should be working, but it doesn't that bugs me! Like this one, or new parts never been used being DOA and such or the shuttle AK35 that died durring a case change for no reason.

Heck I can replace the board with a better one for $50, but it still bugs me this one don't work for some reason I don't know.

It could be "Mostly Dead"

Yep that's what Biostar support replied basically. At least they were prompt in answering my email I sent from the support form on their site.

They did offer several options to me also, being it is out of warauntee now. $35 for a new one, or I could send it in for service/replace for $30. I'll just buy another board, but I was happy to hear back from them so promptly on this.

If anyone has an idea why this died this way is what I'd like to know. Wondering if it could be something simple like a dead bios chip, or something I could pull from a different dead board.
Heck I could just keep it for now and use it to turn on and off the power supplie to run lights/fans and other stuff latter I geuss. It does do that still, and the 3 pin headers still work too.

Geuss it's still good for something, I been planning to build a fancy looking system for a computer shop window for display. Cathodes, led fans, UV cables, EL wires, etc.. all in one fancy case for window display only. Never did though because didn't want to waist a working system that way. Well now I got the system board for what looks like a working system

If your in cases quite a bit and poking aorund in them, you might want to get a post card. It's a card thatg you plug into your computer, and then you lookup the codes on the digital readout and compare it to a chart based on your bios. This would allow ou pinpoint more accurately what is going wrong with your computer.

here's some guesses as to the problem, power supply lead blown. You have +5, and the +12, but not the 3.3 for the cpu.....

Some mainboard component blown making the bios fail to load upon startup. It might be a loose connecction, expsecially since you mentioned that it would boot before, just take a while. It sounds like it was running a self test of some kind or timing out on an operation and warming up, or a resurge of electric brought it back in line.

Good luck, but I really think your going to be stuck buying another board. Knowing your luck it could be a small diode dying before it's time and your the one who drew the lucky number to get it to happen to.

Yep, I should get a post card, thanks for reminding me about those.

Might be right about some of the other posible causes, but I am still using the P/s and it's been working fine in a different system. And the system is still dead with a new P/s. Something to tinker with as time goes on I geuss.

Originally posted by smb
It could be "Mostly Dead"

but then, it's slightly alive

i had a revelation!

when you boot-up your pc press page up, or the button that your mobo manual says automatically finds the correct setting for processer.

i have the same problem with my dads because i managed to cause a fatel error...oops .

well any-way my dads comp takes a bit longer than normal to boot up and every so often the thing hangs at a black screen before it gets to the bios my hard drive and cdrom lights flash but i just have a black screen, when this happens i turn the thing off then back on and as soon as that green light comes on i press "page Up" and it loads up fine.

hope this helps.

this happened to me today and jogged my memory about this post, as i say this happens to me every few weeks, when my parents are on hols im gonna take out a few bits and see if i can fix it.

good luck. :