PC boot problem

[mikey]

I believe that what you are experiencing is a bad power supply. If you want to keep the computer, you may want to invest in a new one or a new case containing a power supply.

[corvettedoctor]

Some of the Pentium pre-200 chips had no cooling fan. If yours isn't working or if the non-fan cpu is clogged with lint overheating will cause similar problems.. check the Power Supply for air blockage.

[lucy]

I have a Pentinum 166 PC, I don't know the the manufacturer of the motherboard but it said ATC-1020 on the board. The PC is about 3 years old. Recently, after I turn the PC off, if I turn it back on within 15 minutes, it will not boot. The screen is blank, the fan does not spin, it is all quiet. I have to wait at least 15 minutes and turn it back on, then it will boot. Any idea what's going on? Is it my power supply?

Lucy

[Pantion]

The maker of you motherboard is A-Trend. Go to http://www.ping.be/bios/ and get a BIOS update for your motherboard. Or it could be a slowly perishing power supply.

Just one thing if you plan to update your BIOS to see if it's the solution to your problem... there is a jumper on the motherboard that is suppossed to protect it from flashing and virus. If you don't remember to move that jumper before flashing then you'll totally destroy your BIOS as I did with an ATC-1020 or ATC-1020+ I had. Read the manual carefully to prevent that mistake.

[lucy]

Thanks for all your help. I think I am going to start with replacing the powersupply. Actually, I am thinking about upgrading the system to a K6 or Celeron, but I would like to keep as many components as possible. Any suggestion on a good AT motherboard?

Lucy

[Alzarius]

I'm using a PcChips M715 board. It's AT, and is PERFECT for Celerons as it will take up to a 500 mhz Celeron (You'll need a slot 1 convertor to plug the chip in) and since it's a slot 1 board, you can not only plug in a Pentium II chip, but you can also, with the slot 1 convertor, plug in the PPGA socket 370 Celerons AND the Slot 1 Celerons. It's got 2 DIMM slots, 4 simm slots, 2 ISA, 3 PCI, 1 AGP and there's an onboard connector so you can plug in a card that has 2 USB ports, 1 PS/2 and 1 Infrared port(This is an ATX form factor card and does NOT take up and PCI/ISA slots. It DOES bolt on to and empty slot in the back. This means it can be bolted anywhere a normal card would go. So you can use some of those "dead space" slots that won't waste the space of a PCI/ISA/AGP slot. The board also has a connector for an ATX power supply as well as the AT supply. Nice little board I say. I highly recommend it as it IS a PII/Celeron board for ATs and those a few and far between.

[Susan]

And there is the FIC 503 (A or +) motherboard that will take your P166 right now so you can upgrade later on with an AMD K6-2 or 3.

If you can find it, the 503A has simm as well as dimm slots to accomodate any simms you may have. The 503+ did away with the simm slots and only has dimms.