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New "used" PC stuck in POST, looking for more TS ideas


Nitrousbird

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Bought another PC online, IBM Thinkcentre M50 8188

 

- When it came, wouldn't POST at all. Come to find the CPU wasn't even in place; was just flopping around w/ the heat sink stuck to it. Cleaned the old grease off, re-greased, and installed correctly. Posted fine to whatever DOS BS they had on it.

 

- Installed AGP card, another 2GB memory, and swapped in a 120GB HD.

 

- Installing Vista, says that BIOS doesn't recognize HD as a bootable drive. Play with BIOS settings, no go.

 

- Notice there is no jumper on drive (Ultra ATA drive); set it to master; it is on primary IDE slot, not shared.

 

- After I do this, it got stuck on POST. The IBM splash screen comes up (no beeps), and is stuck there. Hitting enter to go to BIOS just makes that prompt go away, but nothing happens. Hitting ESC brings up the POST checks, w/ hitting F1 to get to the BIOS setup, but again, just hangs there.

 

- Tried the CMOS/Boot Block recovery, no go

 

- Tried the boot block recovery w/ re-installing BIOS via floppy. Procedure goes as instructed, but same issue when I try to boot up.

 

- Put everything back to what it came with, no go. Discoed all IDE cables from mother board, and again no go.

 

I'm about to send the damn thing back (and not tell them I touched anything), but is there ANYTHING else for me to try? Setting a hard drive to master should not have done this.

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Take the jumper off the master and put it on single if the drive has it.

 

Also double check to make sure the cable is plugged in the right way. If you put ide in backwards on somemobos no post at all some never leave bios screen.

 

 

Test the drive in another working machine make sure the drive is good, If it detect fine in the other machine as good check the ide cable.

 

 

Try pluggin the HD into the dvd/cdrom drives cable and see what it does if it does not freeze its very possible you just have a bad cable.

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- I tried a different HD as well, no go. Also tried different jumper settings on the hard drive.

 

- You can only plug the IDE cables in one way; there is a notch on them.

 

- Tried the other IDE cable, and tried all with/without them plugged in

 

- Tried different memory module...again, no go.

 

At this point, I'm sending the damn thing back. That processor banging around during shipping had me worried enough about this thing.

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No jumper on the HD also means master, there have been times where that's the only way I've been able to get it to work, is with no jumper. Pull it off again, try XP just in case Vista isn't happy with something in the computer.
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Remove everything except 1 hard drive, video card, keyboard and mouse, try to substitute the hard drive and video card from a working machine.

 

I have had computers that would not pass POST because like the sound card or video card was dead. Keep swapping pieces out one at a time until you can rule out which hardware does work with this computer.

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No jumper on the HD also means master, there have been times where that's the only way I've been able to get it to work, is with no jumper. Pull it off again, try XP just in case Vista isn't happy with something in the computer.

Tried two hard drives, with jumpers on/off, and following diagram on hard drive. XP and Vista have nothing to do with it; the machine won't even POST, so it's not even getting to the point of booting anything up.

 

Maybe thats why you got it for less $$ than mine :p

 

http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38392

I looked at the feedback of the seller, who sold a ton of these machines; looks like I was the only unlucky one. Sorry if you don't know what your machine is worth.

 

try updating the BIOS... I know that I had to update my BIOS to load Windows XP as well as VISTA

Already updated it, no go.

 

Remove everything except 1 hard drive, video card, keyboard and mouse, try to substitute the hard drive and video card from a working machine.

 

I have had computers that would not pass POST because like the sound card or video card was dead. Keep swapping pieces out one at a time until you can rule out which hardware does work with this computer.

Has both AGP and integrated video. No card installed in any slots, tried two hard drives, and bypassed all other drives...no luck.

 

I'm just sending it back; it's a lost cause.

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1. Pour a nice hot bath.

2. Turn on your Syris radio

3. Plug in PC

4. Place PC on edge of bath.

5. Get in bath.

6. slide PC into water with you.

Howard, I'm not taking a bath with you again. I can't believe I fell for that the last time....

 

And it's Sirius. :p

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