I initially suspect power is the problem here.  If it were your drives you
"should" get video and then a drive controller failure.  Not alway, though.
The way to verify is to disconnect both drives and then boot.  If you get
video at that point, then it is one of the drives.  Connect each one
separately to find out which one is preventing boot.

If disconnecting both drives makes no difference, start removing cards,
floppy, etc. one at a time until it either posts or there is nothing else to
remove.  If you get to this point and have another video card, swap out the
video.  You also want to do the same with RAM and CPU if possible.  After
all this you still get the same results, try another power supply.  That
will elminate the possibility of a bad motherboard.

Kyle

From: "Rick Lindstrom" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 8:38 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Problem during POST


> I've been having an intermittent problem lately that occurs at bootup:
>
> The system hangs while doing the POST; whatever is going on happens before
> the video is initialized as there is no video out. The access lights for
> the CDROM drive and the HD are on steady and stay that way, and there are
> no beeps. I haven't noticed whether the keyboard lights have flashed or
> not. Also, I do not hear the hard drives (of which there are two) spin up.
>
> At this point, the system is totally hung- the reset and power buttons do
> not work (ATX mobo), and I have to cycle the power at the power strip to
> get the machine to respond, after which it generally starts normally and
> runs fine once booted.
>
> What I suspect is that one of the two hard drives has a failing bearing on
> the platter and is not spinning up, but I don't know enough about the POST
> sequence to judge whether spinup should be happening at this particular
point.
>
> Anyone have ideas on this?
>
> Thanks-
>
> Rick Lindstrom

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