[Wiltshire] BIOS flashy thing.

[Lugo Teehalt]

--- On Sun, 18/9/11, Simon Iremonger (wiltslug) <wiltslug at iremonger.me.uk> wrote:

> From: Simon Iremonger (wiltslug) <wiltslug at iremonger.me.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Wiltshire] BIOS flashy thing.
> To: wiltshire at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Date: Sunday, 18 September, 2011, 10:11
> > Computer:  4G RAM; 250G hd
> + 500G hd; psu 350wats max;
> > nVidia gforce gt430 graphics card; TV card; DVD
> read/write drive.
> > It was unused for several months.  Put in new
> graphics card.
> > Would not boot - nothing to monitor.
> 
> > Tried it a lot of times, on 4 occasions something
> happened.
> > Once got a message saying BIOS corrupt;  booted
> up normally
> > twice (when I hard rebooted)  left it on second
> time and it
> > went down after a few hours; once gave BIOS setup, did
> not
> > take opportunity to flash bios - generally have had
> some
> > sort of death wish with it.
> 
> > Tried removing RAM and putting one in; unplugging
> things,
> > that sort of stuff.  Tried switching it on with
> CD with
> > bios on it in which, I think, should allow it to
> repair bios.
> 
> 
> Given the intermittency you saw, I would more suspect
> something
>   along the lines of iffy power supply or failing
> capacitors
>   somewhere.
> This could easily CAUSE errors like the "BIOS corrupt"
> etc.
>   but the actual flash-data in the BIOS itself is less
> likely
>   to be faulty, just something is going wrong such
> that it
>   "cant think straight" and hence gives errors, etc.
> 
> Try attaching only:-
> Motherboard, ram, cpu  (those that were working)
> Older graphics card    (that used to work)
> Plug in monitor/keyboard/power...
> With your PSU,
> But NO Hard disk or CD Drive, attached (neither to board
>   nor to power supply).
> 
> Does that start consistently into the BIOS setup?
> 
> If not, I would very much suggest trying another PSU.
> 
> Power Supplies, are something I could go on to talk about
>   for ages, but in short: the QUALITY of power
> supplies
>   is NOT measured in 'watts' -- they are more a
> number
>   that 'sells power supplies' to those who dont
> know...
> 
> If you reduce the load on your PSU by using less stuff
>   attached to it, and the older graphics card... 
> It
>   may help to identify the likely problem ;-).
> 
> 
> 
> If you can get BIOS setup appearing consistently, you
>   should then try to boot Memtest86 (e.g. using the
>   boot-menu on an older ubuntu CD, having reattached
>   cd drive, of course).  You may be able to get
> to
>   memtest86 on newer ubuntu cds by holding down
> shift,
>   or something like that.
> Once that works, move on from there...  Try to get
>   memtest going with all your hardware attached.
> It is VITAL that memtest can run continuously without
>   errors, before trying to ''fix'' any software.
>   It should get to at least 1 "pass"....
>   Otherwise you just get more 'corrupted data' and
>   things go downhill from there...
> 
> -Simon

Thanks for replies.

Did all as suggested and nothing worked, although it is anybodies guess whether the old graphics card is working - it did get hot.

Vis power supplies:

System Requirements 	- PCI Express or PCI Express 2.0-compliant motherboard with one x16 graphics slot
- Minimum 300W or greater system power supply (with a minimum 12V current rating of 22A)

And according to Wikipedia:

"The most important factor for judging a PSUs suitability for certain graphics cards is the PSUs total 12V output, as it is that voltage on which modern graphics cards operate. If the total 12V output stated on the PSU is higher than the suggested minimum of the card, then that PSU can fully supply the card. It is however recommended that a PSU should not just cover the graphics cards' demands, as there are other components in the PC that depend on the 12 V output, including the CPU , disk drives and optical drives."  My PSU is rated 18A on the +12V line, 0.8A on the -12V line.  This is less than the 22A recommended.  So PSU is alright on the max wattage front (350W) but too small on the 12V line front.

So your remarks about psu seem just.  Is it sensible to ask for a PSU recommendation?

A worry I've got is that by buggering about with it so much I may have destroyed half of it.