Comp starts up about 10-20% of the time, rest freezes up

[AuraEdge]

I have an old Compaq Prisario im trying to put back up. It has a VX board with integrated video and audio and a P200MMX chip. It also has a 56k k flex Modem, a Maxtor 5.6 GB HDD, a CD Rom drive, and a floppy drive. the AT power supply housed in it is only supplys 75w.

The problem is most of the time i start it up, it will show the Video BIOS text at the begining, and then freeze up at the Compaq logo. about 10% of the time when I start it, it will boot into windows fine, and have no problems whatsoever.

I first suspected the Powersupply burning out (its four years old after all) but Im not sure because if it was burned out, it wouldnt start at all, not stall on a screen afterloading the video BIOS.

Can the PS still be the culprit? If not what else could it be?

BTW the original Compaq came with a Seagate 3.2 GB drive which has since been fried. Other than replacing this with the Maxtor, all components remain the same.

BTW, if i unplug the HDD, CD and floppy power cables, it will still be frozen at that screen the same percent of the time. (when it didnt freeze it would say HDD not present or something similar)

Any helps appreciated in bringing my ancient system back to life

[AuraEdge]

Nope...not resolved yet...
Can the Mobo battery cause it not to start up? I cant find the model of this board, I think it is made at least im part by compaq and doesnt have any indentification. except 'compaq sniper'

[buitenb]

he dudes !!!!! compaq doesent use a bios
on the mainboard !! but with the right disks
it makes a litle partition to save the
mainbord settings !!!
most people have problems when they replace the "old" harddisk
look at the compaq website for details !!
http://www.betuwe.net/~buitenb/

[Bleeding Edge]

AEdge. I admit I'm not familiar with Compaq motherboards but a MB without a Bios is news to me.

I was thinking along the lines that the Bios could be corrupt and a failing battery making things worse by not being able to retain the settings.

Might want to check the PS for proper voltages going to the board...

[ENVY]

Some of the older compaqs did not have a bios that we all know and love.Instead they stored it on a partition on the drive.
Compaq gave you a nifty little floppy proggie that would allow you to make changes to the settings in this partition.without this proggie there is no way that I know of to make these changes.
Did this machine ever run after replacing the drive?If not then the drive paramters are not correct.If it did indeed run then the problem might be elsewhere.

[AuraEdge]

Yes it does run, and runs without fail the times that it does start up into windows. but gets caught up at that bios screen to much
Also I used Compaq's Quick restore CD, which, if in fact it did need to keep the BIOS on a HDD partition, would have recreated it.

Also the power supply has no switchs except the on off button. Its one of those old ones tha has the fan on the interior and blows onto the CPU.

Does a ATX board use the same mainboard battery as an AT board? I have a BH6 lying around and can take out the battery and try to replace the Compaq boards battery if so. If that still doesnt work, I think it has to be the PS. Its been mine for four years, and not in use for the last year or so.

--EDIT
Lithium battery has just been replaced with a brand new one. It still has the same problem.

[This message has been edited by AuraEdge (edited 10-28-1999).]

[Bleeding Edge]

Thanks for the confirmation, Envy.

I hope I didn't sound like I doubted you Buitenb. I just didn't know...

[socalgal]

I may be able to use some info in ths thread...

AEdge - I'm going to be working this weekend on a Presario 9232, the mobo is dated 1995 or '96 (don't remember). Is this close to what you have? Thanks.

~~Edit: Don't know if this will be of use to you AEdge, but a good bud found "Softpaq" update for several older Presarios.

Regrets for the previous worthless link.. http://www.compaq.com/support/files/index.html (This isn't much better but at least you can navigate from it!)


[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 10-29-1999).]

[Bleeding Edge]

Have you got this problem resolved yet AEdge?

Tried reflashing the Bios and/or replacing the battery?

[Nathan]

Well here is my opinion on this thread.

I think we need to think about something here. No BIOS on the motherboard, but on the hard drive? Compaq's will work without that Diag partition on the hard drive. I've done it many times. What we are confusing here, I think, is whether we can access CMOS and CHANGE some of those settings or not. On many Compaq's, you can't access CMOS to change some of the BIOS setting unless the Non-DOS (Diag) partition is there. Now if the BIOS was truly there on the hard drive, in my opinion, the motherboard won't boot because it wouldn't know what to do, right? Because in the case of a new hard drive, well, it isn't on it. But now in the boot sequence, the BIOS has to see the hard drive first before it will allow it to boot to it. So with that being the case, the board can't boot because it needs the settings. But it can't get the settings because it doesn't see the hard drive yet. It needs the BIOS to see the hard drive. Does that make sense? If so, explain it to me will ya? hehe. Just kidding.

I've got a Presario 4528 that doesn't have the diag partition and I installed 98 on it. It has a 3.2 GB drive on it. Now I can't access CMOS, but that's not a problem because everything works just fine without it, including printing.

Now to throw more fuel onto the fire, Compaq is placing that utility that allows us to view CMOS back onto the motherboard like almost all other OEM boards. So there isn't the DIAG partition on the hard drives now. So go figure huh.

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully it'll make sense. Plus I'm trying to do this at 2:00 A.M. (hehe maybe I'm writing this in Spanish and can't tell right now LOL) It's not easy to explain. I'm not the smartest guy around that's for sure to explain it.

[This message has been edited by Nathan (edited 10-29-1999).]

[Nathan]

Another thought here is if the BIOS was stored on the hard drive, how can we flash them? The BIOS needs the hard drive to boot to it to be able to flash them, that's if they are stored on them. It can't because it doesn't see the hard drive yet.

The F10 option is after the hard drive is spotted by the BIOS and it sees the DIAG partition there, correct? Because of the Compaq logo, it doesn't usually show the size of the hard drive.

[AuraEdge]

I have a Compaq Presario 4532
I see a chip on the compaq sniper board that looks like a BIOS chip. It had a white compaq sticker on it. Anyways, I peeled the sticker off and it says STT and some serial codes on it.
Sound good?

Also below the last ISA slot, it says PhoenixBIOS PCI Pentium PnP, Phoenix 1995.
If my memory serves me correctly, isnt Phoenix the BIOS that preceded Award?

It also could be a bad ram problem, but it has 32MB integrated in the board, which i cant just take out and replace. (it wasnt bad last year...maybe it 'got' bad?). It has a free DIMM tho, and I have a 64MB stick lying around. I dont think I can disable the onboard ram to check if thats the problem. If the board or some not replacable part on the board is the problem theres no point in me restoring it at all, as the cost of the parts will be worth more than the restored system to me.

And when it does start up, and I can enter the SETUP, I can see everything perfectly (HDD, CDrom drive and everything). As I said, When it does work, it works completely and totally. I just have to flick the switch til it does start up sucessfully


[This message has been edited by AuraEdge (edited 10-29-1999).]