I had a similar problem. One of my IDE hard drives started making some clicking noises. The OS (Linux) was still working OK, but I shut down just in case. I decided to pull the offending drive out of the computer, but first I needed to get some important files off of it. Tried to boot the computer (to get the files off of the drive) but it wouldn't POST, and I wouldn't even get a video signal from the video card. Here's the similar part: it wouldn't power off when I pressed the power button! After several phone calls to the manufacturer, I sent the motherboard in for warranty repair. It's a long story, but after $30 in phone calls, shipping the motherboard to them TWICE, and being without my computer for three months, they finally sent me my repaired motherboard. It turns out that a few resistors were fried. I really think the bad hard drive damaged the motherboard. I haven't connected it to any other motherboards yet, and am reluctant to do so unless it's an old 386 that I don't mind losing. Maybe that doesn't help you, but you're the first person I've heard of who has a problem even remotely resembling the one I had. Eric On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Wood, Mary wrote: > Putting out a general distress call to see if anyone > else out there has run into a similar problem ... and > was able to do something about it besides convert the > PC into a cat litter box. > > I'm working on a Dell Optiplex GX200 running Win2k (no, not > Linux, but I'm reasonably certain this is hardware and not > OS related). User left PC on when he went to lunch, came > back to find monitor in power save mode (which it should be). > But moving mouse/pressing keys on keyboard did not bring up > video. He tried powering off PC, but it wouldn't power off > (being a Dell, he probably didn't hold power button in long > enough) so he turned off surge strip to cut power to PC. > Waited a few seconds, powered PC back on, got a pre-POST > message saying "memory parity failure." We have since been > unable to boot machine past this message and address given > is different each time we get the message. More often than > not, attempts to boot result in no video, yellow light on > monitor as if it's not detecting PC. > > Called Dell yesterday and they took me through the usual > steps; "disconnect this and test, disconnect that and test, > disconnect everything but power supply and test. Dell and > I concurred a new motherboard was the next logical step and > they shipped one to me. > > Just put in the new motherboard, testing each time I connected > something new. All ok until I hooked up HD and CD-Rom/floppy > (CD and floppy both on IDE 2 ... it's one of those new super > floppy jobs). PC powered up ok, but didn't detect any drives. > I powered down, pushed cables in to make sure they were secure, > powered up and it's back to the same problem; memory parity > error. Disconnected drives, connect that, disconnect this, same > problem ... back to square one. > > I've also tried switching memory chips (PC uses RIMM; 1 memory > chip and 1 dummy chip). No effect. > > Any ideas? Ever run into something like this before? > > Thanks in advance > > - Mary, the ever growing little PC tech. > > > _______________________________________________ > techtalk mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/techtalk > -- My public OpenPGP key can be found at http://www.wwu.edu/~turnere/turnere.asc _______________________________________________ techtalk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/techtalk
