Computer gurus... Intermittent boot problems???
 

HELP!!!!!

My mates machine runs an XP2200 chip and 256 Mb RAM and an ATi all-in-wonder graphics card ~ 2/3 yrs old.

He had a problem that although the machine would power up it would not turn the monitor on.

I took the box home and plugged it into my peripherals and exactly the same thing happened.

I swapped my graphics card into the machine - no difference.

I connected the clear CMOS jumper - no difference.

I then disconnected and removed the PCI cards - firewire and modem - no difference.

I disconnected the CD & DVD drives & floppy drive - no difference.

Disconnected hard Drive - no difference.

Removed RAM & replaced - cleared CMOS again and pushed on button without returning jumper to default position - no power on, realised mistake and replaced jumper in run position and machine started to boot.

Shut down and added hard drive back in... machine booted into windows :luxhello:

Added components back in floppy, CD, DVD - machine booted again.

Firewire... machine booted again

modem - machine started whilst putting in card :wonder: - didn't run though to boot up. removed card & tried again - monitor not responding, no boot up. connected JP1 to clear CMOS - no boot up, connected JP1 and pressed power button then returned JP1 to default position and machine booted up :Suspiciou

The machine seemed to be OK at this point tried a few boot ups and shut downs.

Checked BIOS settings - adjusted basic stuff - saved settings and exit - no boot - Had to do the JP1 press power button & return jumper to get machine to boot.

Suspected Battery on board.

I returned the machine to my mate who mentined that a couple of times the machine had lost it correct date setting causing his emails to be incorrectly filed. - So new battery must be required I thought.

He plugged it into his peripherals and the thing wouldn't boot!

I got a new battery for the board (and an extra 256 Mb of RAM robbed from one of my machines ;) ) Went round to sort it out - took ages of fiddling to get the thing to boot again - down to removing & replacing RAM stick & clear CMOS with power button press before it would boot again :confused: - once running we connected all the stuff & put in the extra RAM & all seemed OK - I ran a defrag & left.

It worked being turned on & off about 4 times over the weekend - Sunday night it went onto the screensaver & froze completely - when reboot button was hit it seems to be back to square 1 - He has just phoned me this morning to let me know :(

We're getting a bit stumped now - don't want to have to do this evry couple of days :rolleyes: Does anyone have any idea of what the problem is - or steps to take to isolate the cause? - He's getting that cheesed off with it he was on the verge of going to PC world with £500 to get a 'new one' - surely we can get him up and running with a stable machine for a tad lesss than that????

Many Thanks

Mick:D

oops - put it in the wrong forum - can the mods move it - or should I repost?