Hello. I am having a boot-up problem with our
family 600mhz Pentium III.
This is a problem I have being trying to solve for
over 4 months so any help anything would be so
very much appreciated.
The configuration is:
Windows 98 SE
Intel Pentium III 600mhz .25micron processor on a
100mhz bus.
128mb of Micron PC100 Memory.
ASUS P3BF 100MHZ Front side bus Motherboard
Western Digital ATA 66 28gigabyte Hard drive on
a Promise ATA 66 Hard drive card
Floppy Drive
3Dfx voodoo 3 16mb PCI video card
Hollywood Sigma II PCI card
Vortex 2 PCI Sound Card
Hollywood HiVAL 16x DVD drive.
In a 400watt Antec SOHO file server case with
rear fans and fan pulling air up and out of power
supply
1400VA/900watt APC Backup Unit (in case power
goes out)
It is a home build computer. One day I went to
start it up and the screen just flickered.
I heard the fans whizzing. So I knew they were
working and it was booting somewhat.
I just could not reach POST. I thought it was the
video card or DVD card. At this time our Monitor
was connected or passed through our DVD card
and a cable ran from our DVD card to our video
card. The DVD card is a Hollywood Sigma II PCI
card and the video card is a 3dFx Voodoo 3 16mb
PCI card.
So I ran the monitor cable to the video card
directly. Still I got the flickering black screen at
boot up like the monitor or video card were bad.
So I took the voodoo 3 card out and tried it in my
other computer. The other computer booted up on
it with no problem. So I knew the video card
worked. I pulled out the dvd card thinking maybe it
was hanging the system. I put the video card back
in and the 600mhz system booted. So I thought it
was all fine. Bad dvd card. But it wasn't. Couple
days later, I get this message on boot up:
WINDOWS FILE ERROR. INSERT SYSTEM DISK
AND RESTART.
I thought 3 things: The hard drive had a virus, the
hard drive image was bad or Windows 98 was
corrupt. I was still able to boot in safe mode at this
time and get into the bios. Also at this time I had a
300watt power supply. So I was able to get into
safe mode and do a virus scan and found nothing.
I restarted the system the system and I got the
flickering black screen like my video card Or
monitor was bad. So I killed the power. Switched
the monitor because the video card had been
tested before. Still I got the same thing. So I shut
off the system and waited a day. Next day I booted
into windows 98 like nothing happened. Virus
checked it all. Nothing. So I backed up all my data
on cds and did a virus check on the cds on my
other computer and the cds came up with nothing.
So I thought my 300 watt power supply was bad.
The case I had was outdated so I bought a new
ANTEC BX1400 SOHO File server case with 400
watt power supply.
At this point I thought I should seek some outside
help so I called my cousin who has built several
home computers and is much more
knowledgeable in this sort of thing than I am. He
felt it was a corrupt Windows 98 image and to
wipe out the hard drive and that is why I got the
WINDOWS FILE ERROR. INSERT SYSTEM DISK
AND RESTART.
Error.
So I wiped out the hard drive took all the computer
components and installed them in the new
ANTEC 400 watt case. At this point I thought I best
only install the bare bones of what I need to boot
the sucker. So I had just:
motherboard in the new case,
cpu,
memory,
hard drive connected not to the Promise ATA 66
card but the motherboard itself,
and video card.
(Side note: the max hard drive transfer rate of the
mb is 33mbs). I even took out the floppy drive
because at this time the floppy on my other
computer decided to die on us. (Just our rotten
luck).
I even didn't connect the DVD drive.
I wrote zeros to the hard drive using our other
computer. Oddly when I connected the hard drive
to my other computer I was able to view all our
files like there was no problem.
Still I formatted the hard drive so it would be like it
was when it came from the factory.
I tried to boot it again and got the black flickering
screen.
The system is able to turn on. I hear the fans
turning. I see them turning.
The fans on my heatsink attached to the cpu are
moving. These fans are connected to the
motherboard so I can monitor their speed. Also I
have a green light on my motherboard and it
lights up. So I believe the motherboard is
functioning fine.
At this point I thought maybe the CMOS battery
was dead. So I replaced that. I also switched out
my memory with my other computer.
I tried to boot the computer. It does not post. I
cannot get into the bios.
All I see is my monitor screen blinking black, I see
& hear all the fans moving.The cpu heatsink feels
hot to the touch. I hear no warning beeps or
anything.I am baffled. Any help would be very
much appreciated.
Thanks.
