Any suggestions, please? -UPDATE - BUT JOY

[Vic Main]

At 09:17 AM 09/12/10, you wrote:
>On Sun, 2010-09-12 at 10:57 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 10:39, Christopher Chan
> > <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk> wrote:
> > >
> > >> All you peoples who do refurbishments and such, what is your gut
> > >> feeling, based on experience, as to what could be wrong? :-) .
> > >>
> > >
> > > Sounds like a fried BIOS maybe? Does this Gigabyte board of yours come
> > > with dual BIOS chips or something?
> > >
>Basil: have you tried pushing (quite hard) on any socketed ICs?
>Sometimes they creep out of their sockets due to alternate warming and
>cooling.  I've fixed many supposedly dead devices in my time by just
>pushing things back in place or by removing and re-inserting chips and
>modules (thus cleaning the contacts).
>
>At this point I would remove the motherboard and power supply entirely
>from the case.  Taking proper static precautions (important in your dry
>climate -- best to do this barefoot in room with no carpet on a clean
>wood table), remove all the memory and re-insert it after cleaning the
>contacts carefully with the rubber end of a pencil.  Hook up the speaker
>and PSU and briefly short the two pins where the power switch connects
>with your pocket knife.  Any beeps? Now try it with the video card and a
>monitor.  This simplifies things and eliminates the chance that
>something has worked itself under the motherboard and is shorting things
>out.  You're working with low voltages here, so this isn't in the least
>dangerous.
>
>Readings of voltage levels with consumer-grade meters don't really tell
>you much.  In this case it is the available current you really care
>about; if not enough the power-hungry CPU isn't going to start ticking.
>
>I don't recall ever seeing a failed BIOS chip since the very early days
>when they came on EPROMS.  Always a first time though.  Good luck!
>
>
>--
>Lilly
>godbless --everyone --no-exceptions


In my Humble opinion, after over 50 years of repairing electronic 
devices, 38 years at a large TV station, 5 years for Philips, etc.
Lily is correct, a large percentage of "electronic" problems are 
actually physical. Bad connections, grounds not made, bad sockets, etc.
The first thing I would do would be do get the computer down to the 
barest configuration possible. No graphics card, no IDE card, etc.
Actually unplugging and re-inserting every connector and chip 
possible, including the RAM cards. Molex connectors aren't particularly good,
especially the larger version. The newer 1mm spacing connectors are very good.

Anyways that's my 2 cents, or is it sense?? ;-) Eh?

Vic