Changed CD ROM Not Recognized, more...

[claydickason]

Had a client today who took one CD Rom out of a Dell Optiplex computer because it wasnt working. She put in a DVD and CD rom. She appears to have connected everything correctly, switches set correct too.

But, when you turn on the machine, I see power put through the drives, and immediately after that the screen displays a bunch of words that are split into pieces. It doesnt really look to even go into much if any of a POST.

My first thought was to check the BIOS set up, but cant even get that far in boot process.

Second thought was the drives are installed wrong, but they arent. I just think they are incompatible.

I did try to only put on one drive, same story. Tried a few other hardware changes...same screen. The screen has words split into pieces as if someone took pieces of a paper and blocked out letters here and there.


Any thoughts?

[abe]

she probably damaged the onboard video card by static or phisicly
Abe

[claydickason]

Good comment about possible ESD. Hadnt thought about the damage. I did take her hard drive and got all the data off it so she at least has her data and can put it on to her laptop.

[l337]

so with the cdrom drives disconected it still wont post?

one thing that could be worth checking is the ide pins on the mobo (very unlikly the ide was disconected from the mobo)

also if still no post clear cmos and stuff might be worth a shot

[purple_minion]

so with the cdrom drives disconected it still wont post?

one thing that could be worth checking is the ide pins on the mobo (very unlikly the ide was disconected from the mobo)

also if still no post clear cmos and stuff might be worth a shot

I was going to suggest that! My bet is either bios or static. Static is nasty, I need to get a GOOD wrist strap but they all look so GD cheap! I might make my own I guess.

[Comtech Solutions]

Do you have a POST card? That would give you the answer. Wouldn't be without it on calls with systems that won't boot.....

If not - while you're waiting for your new order to arrive - unplug the optical drive entirely and see what happens. If it boots, check the jumper settings. If still no boot, then you're looking at ESD as mentioned, or some kind of M/B failure. I suppose it's also possible, although coincidental, that some other peice of hardware has bit the dust - have you checked RAM with Memtest86+?

[claydickason]

Thank you to all who responded. it will help with future jobs. It took a bit for the local and pretty decent computer supply store and the right person to know where the POST Cards were and not "postcards" haha.

In the case I pulled her HD and put all her files to an external drive, then put the files on her laptop. I decided that if it was only a video issue (onboard) it would still cost her as well as more of my time. It wasnt cost effective to search it, all I would be doing is enhance myself which isnt a bad thing, but this wasnt the place to do that.

The machine has little or no value so I gave her a few ads on craigslist where she could get something better for less than it would cost to research and fix her tower pc.