Prelude: A CD was inserted in the Compaq DVD-ROM inside this system (see System 2 in my post in the Rig thread). Everything fell apart thereafter. Windows 2000 Pro SP2 ceased recognizing the drive, then locked up and when it was rebooted, it hung at "Verifying DMI Pool Data".
After playing around for a while, I got the system running with a different hard drive (WD Caviar 36400, 6.4 gig), but then after I installed the OS, I shut the system down to mount the hard drive (please spare me the sick plays on the words "mount" and "hard drive" in the same sentence ) in the case, and when I turned it back on, I didn't even get POST.
I reset the CMOS I don't know how many times, and I've reseated all the detachable parts in it, and given it a thorough dust-removal, I've swapped every part that I can swap, I've tried to boot it with only a video card in, I've tried booting to a floppy with no other drives connected, I've tried to boot it with the hard drive only connected, I've tried to boot it with a Win98 CD in the DVD drive with no other drives connected, I've tried disconnecting all the drives and turning it on to see if it would at least give me a post code for no drives being connected. Nothing even gets a beep out of the system. I turn it on and I neither see nor hear anything.
It doesn't make sense that it would fail this quickly seeing as it was working perfectly the day before it died. And I do mean perfectly as in we never received any blue screen or lock up from it after it was set at 945 mhz (there was one blue screen incident when it was clocked at 1000 mhz, but that was it). It ran for months at a time before this happened. Literally. It has a record uptime of 40 days on Linux. The system was ROCK SOLID, there is no logical explanation for something as trivial as inserting a CD causing a cascade failure like this.
I've tried just about everything I can think of. Anyone have any other suggestions?
After playing around for a while, I got the system running with a different hard drive (WD Caviar 36400, 6.4 gig), but then after I installed the OS, I shut the system down to mount the hard drive (please spare me the sick plays on the words "mount" and "hard drive" in the same sentence ) in the case, and when I turned it back on, I didn't even get POST.
I reset the CMOS I don't know how many times, and I've reseated all the detachable parts in it, and given it a thorough dust-removal, I've swapped every part that I can swap, I've tried to boot it with only a video card in, I've tried booting to a floppy with no other drives connected, I've tried to boot it with the hard drive only connected, I've tried to boot it with a Win98 CD in the DVD drive with no other drives connected, I've tried disconnecting all the drives and turning it on to see if it would at least give me a post code for no drives being connected. Nothing even gets a beep out of the system. I turn it on and I neither see nor hear anything.
It doesn't make sense that it would fail this quickly seeing as it was working perfectly the day before it died. And I do mean perfectly as in we never received any blue screen or lock up from it after it was set at 945 mhz (there was one blue screen incident when it was clocked at 1000 mhz, but that was it). It ran for months at a time before this happened. Literally. It has a record uptime of 40 days on Linux. The system was ROCK SOLID, there is no logical explanation for something as trivial as inserting a CD causing a cascade failure like this.
I've tried just about everything I can think of. Anyone have any other suggestions?