Old PC Not Booting

Mr E

I'm troubleshooting a problem a friend is having with his PC.

On booting, there is no signal to the monitor. I get one long beep and two short beeps. Put his service tag into the Dell website, looked up the BIOS beep codes, and it says that the graphics card is faulty or not seated correctly. Reseated it - didn't help.

Bought a cheapie Hercules card in PC World, put it in (assuming it would fix the problem), but I'm getting the same thing.

Whats weird is that for both cards, I get the long beep + 2 short beeps, then it tries to read the floppy, then I get the beeps again, then it tries to read the floppy etc. etc. Keeps repeating the sequence until I switch it off.

Any ideas? Problem with the AGP slot?

Its an old Dell, XPS T700r (Dell P3).

- Dave.

Sleipnir

have you got a PCI gfx card you could try?

It could be a grounding problem between the motherboard and the case.
Try taking the MB out of the case entirely and see if it works then.
I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago and shifting the MB slighty in the case solved the problem.

joePC

Check the memory is seated correctly, Make sure the AGP card is pushed fully, fully down into the slot, Clear the CMOS/BIOS and start.

It should post...........

Thanks joe............

Mr E

Originally posted by joePC
Clear the CMOS/BIOS and start.

By removing the battery and putting it back in, right?

Originally posted by Kananga
It could be a grounding problem between the motherboard and the case.
Try taking the MB out of the case entirely and see if it works then.
I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago and shifting the MB slighty in the case solved the problem.

I'll try that over the xmas break....

Thanks folks, I've a few new things to try out now....

- Dave.

unkel

Originally posted by TmB
By removing the battery and putting it back in, right?

No, that could take hours. Change the clear cmos jumper on the motherboard, leave it for a few seconds and change it back. Works every time. If you can't see this jumper on the mobo, you'll have to look it up in the manual

Mr E

Cheers, unkel. I'll try that.

- Dave.