need ideas on older compaq

[wvjohn]

you all know the deal....my secretary's daughter got this for herboyfriend at radio snack who knows when, then broke up with her boyfriend and is still making payments on this puppy

compaq presario 5000 series 5bw172 "Internet Computer" lol

p3 733 - some kind of ati onboard - 64 mb pc 100 (micron at least but looks like it may be on proprietary pcb)

sucker won't post or boot - all i got was a doa box -

fan spins - 2 cds - 1 floppy

i was trying to get it to boot off something and it started to boot once when i had an xp disk in cd#1 and a win2k boot disk in floppy

it went to bios quickly, started posting , did something then stopped

now can't get into bios at all - if i could i could reload or repair whatever os this puppy has

i remember compaq used to put bios on the HDD -

so far

cleared cmos - nope
disconnnected all drives - nope
disconnected cd drives - nope
disconnected hdd - nope
disconnected FD - nope

tried to boot holding down f1 through f12, control and del - nope

anybody have any ideas here?

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this - there's a repair place by work where the guy owes me and works on old junk like this a lot so he may know his way around this box - i do want to get it fixed because my secretary takes care of me

TIA

[shaggy]

The last compaq I dealt with wound up being a bad motherboard. I could get it to boot randomly by switching out memory sticks, but it would never boot in the same config twice. Every thing but the motherboard lives on in another computer, working just fine.

[FlyingPenguin]

Sounds like you've tried all the obvious things.

If you have a spare PSU try that - doubt it but you never know.

Make sure the ram and CPU are fully seated.

You reset the CMOS but did you test or replace the battery? I've seen systems that wouldn't post because the battery was too weak.

Hope this helps...

[wvjohn]

didn't try the battery - i'll see if i can scrounge one from some other mobo

[wvjohn]

battery didn't work - but the guy next door said that 50% of the probs they have with compaq and hps is modem gone bad that takes down whole system - i'll try that

[FlyingPenguin]

Yes, actually pull ALL your cards except video. I've seen a NIC or modem that took a surge short out the entire system until the card was pulled. Happens all the time, and not just on Compaqs.

[CCS]

If shes still paying on it I assume she can return it for some sort of refund? In part as she has used it...

If not I'd swing by Compaq's (hp lol) site and look for the bios for it... then swap HD's if possible and try working from a new drive. If that works swap back and try the old drive..

I'm sure it came with some sort of recovery disc when first bought so ask her about them...

[CaterpillarAssassin]

CCS he is not even able to get into the bios.

Yeah I'd agree with FP. Pull all cards but the video. Then if that doest work, try some different ram. That is if is is not proprietary

[FlyingPenguin]

Also - although it doesn't sound like a PSU issue - try another PSU (just hotwire it to the mobo real quick to see if it POSTs).

Overall though it sounds like a DOA mobo.

[wvjohn]

thanks for all the ideas guys - i decided to watch the series tonight instead of aggravating myself - hmm rain delay ... maybe i'll pull all the other cards - if i get desperate i'll pull the onboard video - although i do have a copy of halo that just arrived ...decisions decisions


EDIT: BAD NIC AND A BAD MODEM - had to reset the cmos twice to get it to kick over and it does have a bad battery that won't write changes to the cmos - but now its a screamingly fast 733 Mhz p3 with an awesome 64 MB of ram

it was running ie 4 or something couldn't even do windows update - started download ie6 and i see the ball game is back on................

thanks as usual to all