Odd Monitor Trick....

[oceaneer]

Seemingly out of the blue the monitor on my son's system has started to require a double boot of the computer to "activate".

First power on starts the computer but the monitor stays blank; if I then power off (reset won't do it) and back on again it comes up fine. (This "feature" is very repeatable). Switched monitors - same result.

The second restart does not cause scandisk to run...so I don't think the full boot is taking place.

(p3 650 Abit BX-6 W98 usual stuff)

Any ideas?

[GNEP]

Is the graphics card seated properly in the AGP slot?

[3dfx]

Yeah that would be the first thing I would check as gfx cards, especially agp ones have a habbit of slidding out of their slot and thats why in new mobo's they have clips on the slot to keep the card in place

[UtwigMU]

Try different videocard.

[VJ]

Yep, badly seated agp card would be my first guess...

Powersupply would actually be my second. My system once refused to boot, but I could see the bus was not getting power (no SCSI-led, no NIC-led, ...), yet the drives spun up. After a lot of searching, I noticed the reset button was stuck inside the case (and pressed down permanently).


Jörg

[The PIT]

I can remember my old Abit scambling the bios on my G400 /G550 cards. The first sign of this was happening was having boot the machine twice until eventually the machine wouldn't boot at all. Then I had to use the emergancy disk.
After selling my Abit motherboard no more probs. Dunno if the same can happen to gfarce just noticed it was an abit you were using.

[Greebe]

I'm willing to bet that your son's ABit is on the way out... bad caps with most all of them. Mine did the same prior to dying and with replacing the caps fixed it.

[Technoid]

Had to replace a MSI K7T Pro2 today because 4 capasitors had blown

Mayby I should get som new and again curse over my soldering iron

[Greebe]

Burnt fingers, round two

[oceaneer]

Tried another video card...same thing. I will put the old one back today and see if it was a slot problem. Otherwise, I guess he will have to live with it until it dies.

Greebe....Are the caps on an LX interchangeable with this BX? (Both Abit boards)

Thanks guys

[rugger]

oceaneer,

Doesn't using the dodgy caps off one Abit motherboard to replace the now dying caps on the other Abit motherboard worry you in the slightest?

[Greebe]

www.digikey.com carries what you need. Also use 105c grade, low ESR type caps for replacements.

Do not replace even older crappy caps of the same in another MB.. especially if it's an Abit!

[oceaneer]

rugger ....Not the best solution, I grant you, but it would give my offspring some soldering practice.....or, come to think of it , a perfect reason to ask for a new mb. What was I thinking????

Greebe....Thanks for the info. I am sure it will come to this sooner rather than later.

[rugger]

Originally posted by oceaneer
rugger ....Not the best solution, I grant you, but it would give my offspring some soldering practice.....or, come to think of it , a perfect reason to ask for a new mb. What was I thinking????

Greebe....Thanks for the info. I am sure it will come to this sooner rather than later.

If you really do like your motherboard, there are people around who can replace the caps for you, for a not too unreasonable price. Do a google search, I am sure you will find them quickly enough