Boot up and random "black screen" issues

[jcam222]

Great board you have here. I could use a little advice and will try to describe my issue clearly. I have a PC about three years old or so with K7S5A mobo(not sure on rev number) with AMD 1900+ processor and a gig of ddr ram. Yesterday out of nowhere when I turned on the system it started powering up (i.e. you could see led lights on hd, cd and cdrw as well as hear fans) the nothing. It did not make it to the first "beep" and monitor went into powersaving mode. I threw in a music cd several times after this to see if it was just monitor or vid card but no music. Since it didnt make it to first beep I am thinking it didnt boot up and is beyond a video issue.

I took off the cover and blew out good with air etc....The pc booted up. Now the pc will run for hours at times or other time may not boot or may boot and then just quicly die to the aforementioned condition. I also ran the MS supplied memtest boot diagnostic which indicated no memory issues.

The powersupply is only a month or so old and when this issue occurs there is actual power as again I see the led and can even open the cd.


Last thing I can think of to mention is that for the life of the pc I have had an occasional checksum error during bootup that then requires me to go in an reset values in the bios ........has happened since I bought it and never been an issue beyond a pain in the ****.

Any advice appreciated. I am guessing I must have either a cpu or mobo issue but I am far from a hardware expert.

 

[jcam222]

I will add a few more facts. The OS is Win98(lol I know i need to upgrade.

The condition can occur either with pc cold ( first thing in morning) or may happen after its been running four hours which would lead me to believe its not temp related.

When I originally took covers off to check problems wiggling the cpu fan made the pc shutdown although the fan was running

The fan is running when the condition occurs

The power supply is a few months old and worked fine. It is a 400W Works ps

I have made no changes to system or software.

The power supply is the third one in four years..


jUst random facts but thought they might help someone hlp me

 

[jcam222]

First thing this morning it booted up and then promptly went to blank screen. Powered off , waited a few and after booting it has now been running for 4 hours.

 

[jcam222]

Has posted many times now and run for many hours but still random issues. Today it was fine this morning then at lunch booted into safe mode. After rebooting it rebooted a couple times on its own then. As in wen to loading windows message and then all of a sudden started reposting on its own? Confused as heck here.

 

[dgower2]

CMOS Battery?

Your CMOS battery could be failing or getting old. That's the big silver "watch" battery on the motherboard. If you're familiar with how to remove this and you have a voltmeter/multimeter, you could test it to make sure it's still putting out the right voltage (3.3 volts probably). If you don't have the meter, you could take the battery to Radio Shack and ask them to test it. Make sure all cables and connections are good on the motherboard. Easy way to do this is just remove and replace the cables, cards, dimms, etc. I just fixed a video cards problem by taking the card out and rubbing a pencil eraser on the gold/copper metal connectors. Over time the electrical transfer between two contacts causes a buildup of some kind of residue (I forget what it is since it's been years since I learned this).

Good luck.

 

[blaacksheep]

You could just have some oxidization buidling up on your board contacts. Since you mentioned wiggling your CPU fan caused it to shut down, I'd start there. Remove your CPU fan, lift up the lever on the ZIF socket, and reseat your CPU and replace the fan. Then remove and re-insert your RAM. Reseat all your cards and cables and then see if that doesn't solve your problem.

 

[jcam222]

thanks guys I will try some of this on the weekend. Funny thing is all week until today the pc ran fine. Today it just did a couple random reboots and now is running fine again. LOL I just got a new Dell but I wanted to get this thing stable so I can pass it to my ex;s daughter for homework. the issue are so random and sporadic its bizzarre.........the random reboot thing is new...I also got a message on one those that said "unable to initialize device IOS"

Once tonight it also just went *poof* to a blank scrreen but then booted and posted fine.