Test to reseat the memory and the IDE cables, also check that all expansion cards are fully inserted in the expansion slots.

Things like this can happen when you move systems around.

I'll see about that tonight. I checked all the connections for anything that had worked loose, but I probably should have unplugged and re-seated everything.

Thinking on it now, it wouldn't shock me to learn that the RAM has worked itself loose in that subtle way that only RAM can...

Oh, sorry to double-tap my own thread, but I did want to ask about the inability to get into "System Setup" on this box. My impression was that an unseated component shouldn't prevent me from getting into the BIOS and that the component in question simply wouldn't show up in system settings rather than actually causing the system to hang even there.

If it's not a loose component, what else might cause this sort of an issue if there's nothing visibly wrong with the motherboard?

One thing that you can try is to clear the CMOS settings (remove the battery and if the board has a Clear CMOS jumper move it to the clear option and wait for 5 to 10 seconds) and then clean the RAM with a pencil eraser and turning on the machine without any drives connected, it should let you to enter the Setup, and if everything goes fine, then reconnect all drives and try again :3 good luck

Runicen wrote:

Oh, sorry to double-tap my own thread, but I did want to ask about the inability to get into "System Setup" on this box. My impression was that an unseated component shouldn't prevent me from getting into the BIOS and that the component in question simply wouldn't show up in system settings rather than actually causing the system to hang even there.

If it's not a loose component, what else might cause this sort of an issue if there's nothing visibly wrong with the motherboard?

Stuff that have come loose can cause all sorts of strange behavior but testing another keyboard is probably also a good idea even if the system seemingly responds to keystrokes.

For reference, this is the only screen that I'm getting from my Dell Optiplex.

I tried unplugging and re-seating everything, even swapping the RAM to the open slot and nothing changed.

Well, actually, I got ONE sign of life from it when I started it with all drives disconnected. It gave line item errors of "Diskette Drive Not Found," "Hard Drive 0 Not Found," and so on, but still wouldn't load system setup or anything else.

I also can't get it to boot from a diskette. The light turns on, but the drive behaves as if there is no disk present.

I have a sinking suspicion this thing is just dead.

Have You reseated the cpu?

A photo of the Motherboard would be nice, at least we can then possibly offer suggestions based on anything we might see.

I haven't tried to re-seat the CPU, but that'll be something to attempt tomorrow when I have a few more hours of daylight to reapply thermal compound and the like.

Attached are pictures of the motherboard, both with and without the expansion card board installed. As you can see, no stains, corrosion, marks or even bulging caps on this thing.

Most perplexing is the fact that I'm not even getting a beep code from the thing. I'd try to flash the BIOS if I could get it to even boot from a diskette, but so far I've had no luck with any of it.

Make sure all the cables (IDE , cdrom, floppy) and inserted correctly and are not damaged. IF the system boots with no cables then that is the problem (incorrectly plugged in, damaged, or master/slave are wrong).

Dead battery?

Unknown_K wrote:

Make sure all the cables (IDE , cdrom, floppy) and inserted correctly and are not damaged. IF the system boots with no cables then that is the problem (incorrectly plugged in, damaged, or master/slave are wrong).

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the problem (I pine for an easy fix). Everything save for the power supply was unplugged from the motherboard and, aside from registering a "drive not found" error on all three drives, no further progress was made.

Caluser2000 wrote:

Dead battery?

This may be a stupid question, but would that really cause me to be unable to enter the BIOS as well as not being able to boot? I could understand if I had to manually re-set all of my BIOS parameters before booting due to a dead battery, but the idea that it would prevent ANY activity seems a bit steep.

I happen to have a couple of spare MMX 200s lying around if you wanna try that route? Next step after that would be to replace the BIOS chip itself I guess.

brassicGamer wrote:

I happen to have a couple of spare MMX 200s lying around if you wanna try that route? Next step after that would be to replace the BIOS chip itself I guess.

Just so I'm clear on it, what all can I remove and still (theoretically) have a system that is able to boot to the BIOS config screen? Is it possible for me to remove the RAM, the expansion card, and CPU and still get at least to the BIOS or do I need at least the CPU installed to even get that far?

At this point, I'll at least attempt to re-seat the CPU and apply arctic silver (which is probably well more than it needs, but whatever) for the heat sink, but if it's feasible to test the BIOS without the CPU, I may as well do that if I'm taking it out anyway and see what (if anything) happens.

If it is the BIOS chip, how does one go about replacing one of those? I don't see any socketed chips on this motherboard and I've never done soldering work on chips like these before.

The BIOS can only run if the CPU and RAM are present and you can obit see the results if you have a graphics card so this is your basic system. Anything else is considered 'peripheral'. I've never used one of those diagnostic boards that plug into an ISA or PCI slot (some cars do either) so I don't know if they can provide some kind of info without the core elements present.

In terms of replacing the BIOS, you would either need to get one from an identical model or download a good copy of the ROM onto a compatible chip but you'd need a writer for that or know someone who does.

EDIT: if you just want to test the BIOS ROM, you'd need an identical (but good) machine to swap it into.

Thanks very much for the info - all around.

In this case, I'm inclined to assume the BIOS chip is hard-soldered to the board and not something socketed I'd be able to easily exchange. It's probably also proprietary as hell.

I'll see about re-seating the CPU this weekend in case it somehow rattled loose during the move. Barring that, I may just have to give up on this box and try to find another P200 system to work with. Even though the mobo looks ok, I have to assume the problem lies with it due to the lack of beep codes on power-up.

Looking at this image of your motherboard, I would put money on the BIOS being the small labelled chip just below the RAM slots:

So yes, not socketed.

EDIT: image swapped for zoomed version

Did you wait a few minutes at the point 'Entering Setup...'? At this point it's trying to talk to the harddisk and in the bad case it can take a while before it gives up.

brassicGamer, do you mean the "Intel" chip? Assuming it would need to be desoldered to be swapped out, right?

h-a-l-9000, I let it sit on the "Please Wait" prompt for ten minutes with no change the other day. When I re-seat the CPU, I may give it longer, but that seems like a pretty fair sign that nothing was forthcoming.

He probably means that little square chip with a paper label glued on top. The Intel chips are the chipset.