PCTech Forums

Im stumped on this one guys..

cleaned my friends system about 5 months ago.. had 1600 virues on it..

a few hundred spies..

managed to move her drive into my system.. and use it as a slave device to clean it.. and back the data off the drives..

put it back into hers.. was some extensive damage to the o/s >>win xp

Re-installed the o/s under the repair / recovery.. all worked fine..

then they got this really random occassional problem where.. you would push the on button.. it would start powering up.. you would see the monitor LED go from gold to green.. then almost like if the power supply was standing down.. the monitor light would go amber again.. and no data no xp splash on screen.. nothing..

reboot.. all is fine..

continually got worse..

but was virus free, worm free, trojan free, even spy free

thought it was maybe some remnant damage from initial 1600 viruses.. (yes they were kazaa users and it didnt help that their AV license had expired and not got renewed) - so.. i backed up her data again.. this time did an fdisk on the hard disk..
then reinstalled everything..
AV, Spybot, Spyware Blaster, Zone Alarm.. clean.. clean to the bone clean..

yet.. it still seems to lock you out visually..

initially it would go into screen saver mode and not come back..

wiggle the mouse.. nothing

click mouse or key on keyboard.. off in la-la land

so i disabled the screen saver AND the apm (auto power/energy saver mode)..

and yes.. from time to time.. still you would power up no light on usb keyboard.. no data on screen...

thought it might be monitor not sync'ing.. or sucking too much power.. or defect in keyboard or mouse.. that was causing supply to partially shut down or brown out..

so i switched all of those 3 parts..

still giving blank boots

I know some of the IBM NetVista's fall under their ECA 065 (engineering change announcement) - over that leaky capacitor fiasco on the motherboard.. but not sure if this model is included.. and

there are no visible signs of that problem..

a problem i have seen before.. (on a different NetVista) where it actually boots.. gets to the xp splash.. and the instant the Higher end video sends a charge thru the vid ccts capacitors.. to handle higher end GUI of xp it resets and reboots.. - but would work fine in dos mode for 4 or 5 hours no problems) - and this system is NOT resetting.. and not showing any signs of leaky capacitors..

any thoughts.. would be muchly appreciated..

Most of your issues involve Startup. Are you sure the Bios or CMOS didn't get a virus or at least, corrupted?
brad

you can run an online scan from :

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

they're good at catching trojans

noby

Thanks Noby..

HAVE run several passes of Stinger and AVG.. clean..

Several passes of Ad-Aware... and Spybot S&D 1.3, have had Zone Alarm on this box.. for weeks.. and have also fortified with Spyware Blaster 331

all good and clean.. so clean you could eat off of it..

which is why im leaning more toward the hardware..

but with nooooooooooo visible signs of power supply overload.. or.. blown capacitors on mb.. it is a real tuff cookie to crack..


right now.. im gonna put a 3rd party power supply in.. (it wont fit..physically .. but.. if problem goes away.. then i know it is power supply cutting out.. at one threshold voltage or another.. ) - the other option since video card in this model is ABOVE board FRU 25P4058 i will see if there is any history in google about it.. and/or leaky capacitor problems

any other help.. would be greatly appreciated..

thanx

sorry i have not got back to you all sooner..

thank you for your inputs.. and your replies..

I tried a different power supply..

The problem was still there..

yes it gets past post.. yes it gets past the xp splash.. yes.. sometimes it even gets to the rolling green grassy hill wallpaper and pops the icons up on the screen.. sometimes it is ok to use for 2 minutes.. before it freezes ...other times.. 20 minutes.. no rhyme or reason.. no pattern to recognize..

i have completely shut off xp's APM features AS WELL AS THE MOTHERBOARDs.. and am still using my other power supply.. just in case.. but yes.. indeed it is locking..

once.. maybe twice.. i did jiggle the mouse.. and when it came back (yes..even though i had shut off the apm power saver features) - i got a message.. "Recovering from a SERIOUS failure" .. SEND / Dont SEND so i said sent..

and off it went to microsoft.. when i clicked on "Track problem" .. it came back almost immediately.. that the issue is likely hardware please contact the manufacturer (which would be fine advice if this puppy was under warranty) -

im doing it for a favour for a friend.. and i doooooo find it somewhat challenging.. (hense the delay.. as i do have a job.. and a life.. out side of teching /troubleshooting for a friend) - anyway..

Could it be a flaky power switch.. could be.. its proprietary..so who knows.. but i would think from my own experiences.. since it is booting or attemptin to boot.. the switch may not be the problem.. as generally .. a short inside the spring mechanism.. would probably in most cases shut it down.. pop the fuse in the power supply.. or cause a reset.. none of which are happening..

As for BIOS codes, it could be..errant or corrupted over time..

but because flashing one can take it from semi operational. to totally messed (power outage during flash process? or defective latch or gate in earom.. in higher memory previously undetected because current code only uses first 192k of the 256k chip and new flash may be larger kernal in size.. ) - bios flash i will leave til last..

Next on my list ... is

Thorough cleaning of MB /slots.. etc.. lots of dust and in a humid environment.. its moisture absorbing characteristics.. will make it an excellent conductor.. ???

I will try a different ram chip..

AND ..i think it is time to remove the processor slap down some more thermal gooooo to make sure it is properly heat dissapating..

any other suggestions.. please let me know.. thank you..

Just a thought but your H.D.D. may be on its way out

sounds like its time to get a new drive?
just bought a maxtor 7200rpm160 gig for $169.

yes.. you could be right..

The HD could be packing it in.. any number of things could be wrong with the HD drive..

i forgot to mention in the previous post/reply that her HD was partitioned originally such that the "recovery" software.. was on C and that it booted to run the O/S.. xp..

never thought to put a dummy drive in..with a diff o/s to see if it still chokes on any drive.. therefore pointing more directly at RAM, cpu, temperature issues.. mb failure.. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm thanks for that tip.. i will follow up ;)

Well as nobody else has mentioned it...........it could be graphics card related

Those dam leaky caps chaps my apps. I've become aware of a leaky cap problem with this particular motherboard. Mine is being replaced for free. Compliments of those fine IBM types.

Anyway check it out, no doubt.

A-Reliant