Zanlin

Here's a tough one for you that's been winding me up.

I currently have my mates PC round for 'fixing'. He told me it was slow to boot and would crash regularly.
What he didn't mention is that 'slow to boot' means 15 to 20 minutes for the POST to start. It eventually gets going and is fine now I've removed the 22 virus' and 39 spyware programs. Once up and going it reboots OK.

For information it is an ECS K7SA5 board with an AMD processor. I've replaced the memory, video, etc, with known good and tried booting with no drives and no cards, but still the same.

He's quite willing to buy new bits, it just annoys me that once it's going all is fine.

Zanlin

HHxx

Try it with a different psu.

Hobo_Jojo

clear the bios's memory?

Zanlin

Thanks HHxx, forgot to add that to things swapped.

I did notice the old PSU was outputting 10.5V on the 12V line underload, but have assumed (ho ho) things won't have been damaged by undervoltage problems.

Z

Gedi

very unlikly its the psu. If its providing enough current to start and run it, it will not cause any other issues.

Sounds like its related to either a corrupt bios, an incorrectly functioning cmos or seomthing damaged essential to the cmos (broken track). I would try the following in order:

Flash bios
replace cmos
replace whole mobo

[Edited by Gedi - 12/24/2003 10:59:37 AM]

Zanlin

Thanks Gedi, good idea. I'll try flashing the BIOS tonight (thinks of beer in fridge . . .) on Boxing day.

Otherwise, anyone got recommendations for an new AMD board?

Z

Hobo_Jojo

id have a spare k7s5a or whatever if i could afford to upgrade mine but im poor!

suba

definitely start with flashing the bios!

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

The K7S5A is notoriously unstable, I've had a few of 'em. Bios is generally the culprit as well as incompatible memory. Its pretty picky.

Got an Abit NF7 now, solid as a rock, highly recommended

Hobo_Jojo

ive never had any form of trouble with my board...maybe i was lucky and got other compatible components without knowing?