Hello Group,

An NEC Powermate has difficulty booting.  Initially, no BIOS load, no POST, just the whirring of the PS fan.  After disconnecting HD, DVD, Floppy, and then reconnecting them, Voila!  POST!  System is protected by system password, owner gave big list with no correct passwords - I cleared BIOS ROM by removing battery.  Now we are down to it - HD is not recognized in BIOS.  I swap w/ working HD (both in CS, plugging at end of cable), BIOS won't recognize this one either.  Time to strip it down, remove all cables, power plugs, etc.

This system board (mobo) has a riser w/ connections for PCI and ISA slots, IDE and floppy controller ports, power switch and power supply.  When I remove the power connectors from this riser, I note that the P2 connector has one of its three wires clipped close to the connector, and I find the other end clipped close to the power supply.  What gives?  It seems unlikely that this clipped wire has anything to do with the HD problem, but what purpose could clipping this wire serve?  The clipped wire is red,
the two intact ones black and brown.

Other details:  P2 266MHz, 3 X 32MB RAM, Quantum Fireball 3.5 Series HD (no clue on capacity), floppy turned out to be disabled in BIOS - last 3 event log messages were "Floppy Drive Error 0"

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Bones

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com