[wplug] diagnosing hardware - machine no longer working ?

Zach netrek at gmail.com
Sun Apr 29 11:33:37 EDT 2007


I am having problem with an old PC I got. It is a full tower XT case,
250W power supply, P3/500 MHz, 128MB SDRAM, 1 30GB IDE HDD, 1 90HB IDE
HDD, some low end PCI video card (AGP 64MB VRAM), low end PCI sound
card, PCI modem (internal), 1x DVD-ROM (internal), 24x10x40 CD-RW
(internal), 3.5" FDD, 19" Optiquest CRT (1024x768) serial keyboard,
serial mouse. I had dual boot setup of Linux 2.2.20-idepci and Windows
98 SE.

I recently got the machine out of storage (climate controlled at 60 F
year round), I have not tried to boot it in 3 years (i bought it new
in 2000/2001). The last time I used it it booted fine. When I tried to
boot it yesterday the lights came on indicating primary hard disk was
on, fans came on (and fan lights), power supply light, and I could
feel and hear both hard disks spinning like they normally would.

However when I turn the monitor on and when the green light is on it
says a short time later "NO SIGNAL - VSYNC / HSYNC". I also tried
turning on monitor before booting, warm booting, and even tried a
spare monitor which does nothing (monitor light stays yellow and never
goes green).

Could it be that the video card has failed? Or could it be a CMOS
battery on motherboard issue? Not sure how long they usually last. My
understanding is that even if a video card failed and hard disk failed
I should still see some message from at least the BIOS on
boot up right? One thing I did notice that seems odd is that the
DVD-ROM drive has power and I can eject the tray however neither the
CDRW drive appears to have power (no light comes on and I can't eject
the tray) nor does the FDD seem to have power (I recall the light
coming on in the past during bootup).

I don't really have many tools nor any voltometers or such so I'm a
bit baffled what I should do for my next steps in diagnosing what is
wrong. Should I buy the cheapest PCI video
card i can and see if that makes a difference? Or should I buy the
cheapest ATX case I can with a similar motherboard and CPU and then
swap in components one by one?i

If the CPU or RAM died would the BIOS still work and give me messages
assuming the video card is fine? Maybe the whole mother board was
somehow damaged? Everything looks fine to my eye, I checked that each
card and drive is securely in place, all the power and connector
cables are in place, nothing feels loose, don't see any visible damage
or burns, don't smell or hear anything odd at boot up. If the disks
are still good I could always buy one of those USB enclosures for them
but I would really like to get this system working since. I got it to
learn more about networking (even got some CAT5 ethernet cable
finally) and I'd hate to junk the whole system. I suppose I could test
the 2 CRTs on my laptop just to be sure they are absolutely working
(Dell Latitude C600 running Linux 2.6.18 and Windows 98 SE dual boot)
though I've never done that before so any tips on that?

I have built from scratch and replaced obviously failed components in
a few systems but I don't have tons of experience in nailing down
hardware problems so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Zach


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