No post screen

Hi can anyone help? I am running XP pro on an ASUS a8v deluxe board. I changed my backup disc which is in a caddy in machine. My computer does not now boot up with backup hard drive in machine. It will only boot from main drive if I remove backup hard disc and for some reason I no longer have post screen, it stays black with a flashing cursor top left then boots staright into windows. Because of this I cannot get into bios to change settings. Please, any ideas??

Shrek

 

Hi Shrek.

I also use a caddy for backup. Very useful. I have about 5 separate hard disks I insert for varying purposes.

For your problem, it sounds like you didn't jumper the new drive similar to the old drive, "master ", "slave ", etc. Also the new drive might jumper different that the old drive. For example, some drives require a jumper for "master" while others require no jumper for "master ". Let us know if that was the problem.

Giles

 

Thanks Giles for reply. The drives in question have been used before without needing to change jumpers as they are set up for slave. This is a peculiar problem that has just started. Usually I can access the bios and make changes so it (bios) recognises what is slave and what is master. This time however is different as there was no post screen.

The problem has corrected itself be me disconnecting power supply , walking away and coming back after a couple of hours. Would still like to know what caused problem and will it happen again.

Regards, Shrek

 

Hi Shrek.

Yep, a problem with the power supply would do it. Your system wasn't detecting any of the hardware so it just quit, hence no post screen.

Good work on the power supply.

The power supply supplies +5 and +12 volts. Generally +5 is used for the logical circuits and +12 is used to drive the hardware. (If you said that outloud on a bbs somewhere you would probably get dozens of arguments, which would all be true.) Some power supplies have relays that flip on on power up. It could be one of those didn't turn on the +12 (or +5) or one of the capacitors didn't drain and flip a circuit, etc. Could have been one of many things in the power supply. I seriously doubt if that condition could cause damage to anything. The system just wouldn't work. I would just keep track and if you have any more problems it might be good to just replace the power supply.

Great work.

Giles

 

I would suggest to check the capacitors on the motherboard if the problem persists. Look for any capacitors that are swollen or leaky. The ones I have come across start out by showing strange faults during POST (setting drives, etc).

Matt