Compaq Presario desktop - No Video Output after going to sleep

[PandaMarketer]

A friend brought me their Compaq Presario SR2173wm running Vista Home Premium 32 bit. (reason: It was too slow for them, I should clean it up / update anti virus and stuff)

I have a workstation set up with confirmed working peripherals and monitor. I plugged in VGA cord, PS2 keyboard, USB mouse and Power cable.

At first, it turned on and I was met with the log on screen. The odd thing is that since the mother board doesn't have a working buzzer/speaker, it doesn't have beeps. (not even the 1 good beep)

I put the supplied password and it was running really slow. This was late at night, and I decided to work on it in the morning. I let it go to sleep and didn't worry about it. The power light was blinking amber. I went to bed.

Next day, it was completely off! (My other computer was on, and was woken up with a shake of the mouse) This Compaq did not.

I power cycled the computer, even removed the power cord for several minutes.

It turned on, the lights come on, the fans turn, the hard drive spins up, the keyboard's LEDs flashed, but no signal is reaching the monitor. I let it stay like this for over 5 minutes to see if it would finally come on. (since it's a slow PC) Nothing.

Things I have tried to no avail:

• confirming VGA cable & montior still work on other systems - they do
• power cycle the machine
• re-plug in all the peripheral cords, then turn on
• opened the case to try other things:
• reseated the RAM
• replugged the PSU cables to the Mobo
• reseated the only expansion card it has - a modem
• shorted the BIOS battery | removed it completely and put it back
• replugged all cables (devices, USB cables, Power/reset/HDD/1394..etc)
• removed modem
• added video card - AGP with DVI output, using VGA adapter
• swapped PSU with another 250W I had laying around
• then tried it with the onboard video, then the video card
• then tried it without the modem
• switched the RAM sticks around (2 sticks, 4 slots)

I am at a loss.

Please tell me what's the next step?

Things I've tried from this thread

• Removed mobo battery for 15 mintues and replaced
• There is no jumpers to short out the bios
• Have removed and replaced the mobo battery multiple times now.

 

[srdrgz11]

Try resetting the cmos.

 

[PandaMarketer]

I just looked, there is no CMOS chip that is removable/resettable. Is that what you mean?

 

[srdrgz11]

take the battery out of the motherboard for about 15 min. The one that looks like a watch battery only bigger. Or look for the clear cmos jumper. refer to the mb manual for instructions on how to clear the cmos via the jumper

 

[PandaMarketer]

Thanks for your help, srdrgz11 but did you read my post? I know what a bios battery is, and I have already removed it -- however, only for a few seconds. (like 20)

I will try leaving it out for 15 minutes.


EDIT: sorry to sound ungrateful, I know some people don't know what a motherboard battery is or what it looks like, and you weren't taking a chance that I did know.

 

[PandaMarketer]

Removing the BIOS battery for 15 minutes did not result in a change.

 

[srdrgz11]

Im i guess i over looked u pulling the battery.

 

[Styxbound]

Long shot

You might try cleaning the cpu and reseating it. And you probably need to find the jumper for clearing the bios; just removing the battery a bit doesn't always do the trick. You also might have to do it more than once.

 

[PandaMarketer]

Thanks for the long shot Styxbound. There were no jumpers to speak of on this particular m/b. As for cleaning the processor, how does one do that? I have cleaned the heatsink/fan and reseated the chip, is that what you meant?

Still no go.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Have a look at this site, which gives you the location for the jumpers to clear the bios.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c00757531#N1222

 

[PandaMarketer]

Thanks for the link Cadishead Computers. I "cleared" the CMOS to no avail.

 

[RegEdit]

I would stick a test hard drive in there and install Windows. See how it operates.

 

[MobileTechie]

You might try discharging the laptop of static charge.

Take the battery out and unplug it. Press the power button and hold it down for like a minute. Then plug the power supply back in (not the battery) and start it up.

I'd read about this many times and sniffed at it. Then I got a dead laptop from a client and quoted them for mobo repair/reballing etc. I tried this trick and it actually worked.

 

[Kitten Kong]

You might try discharging the laptop of static charge.

Take the battery out and unplug it. Press the power button and hold it down for like a minute. Then plug the power supply back in (not the battery) and start it up.

I'd read about this many times and sniffed at it. Then I got a dead laptop from a client and quoted them for mobo repair/reballing etc. I tried this trick and it actually worked.

Slight problem with that Kev.. its a desktop he's working on lol

 

[MobileTechie]

Kev?

Oh right - dunno why I thought it was a laptop LOL!

Still worth remembering for the future. Quite literally the fastest money I ever earned

 

[PandaMarketer]

RegEdit... I'll be damned! The thing turns on with a different hard disk in it. (No hard disk, no start too)

Still worth remembering for the future.

No kidding mobileTechie, that trick has worked for me twice already.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Kev?

Oh right - dunno why I thought it was a laptop LOL!

Still worth remembering for the future. Quite literally the fastest money I ever earned

Sorry mate.. my mistake YET again lol..But thanks for the heads up on that tip. It's one I havent heard of before..

 

[PandaMarketer]

Ok, I tried to install a new hard drive and install windows on it.. but it doesn't boot now. It seems that there is no power going to the usb ports either. Tried to boot from an optical disc, and USB flash drive. Nada.

Very strange. Could it be the main board? At this point, I just want to install windows on a separate disk and put it in this puppy.

 

[PandaMarketer]

Well, I was able to reach the BIOS by putting in an XP hard drive, and I set the time, and boot sequence. Then saved and exit. The PC didn't reboot automatically, which is weird.

I hard booted and now it won't POST with the XP hard drive in it. I get no response from the ps2 keyboard.

There's got to be a simple explanation to this phenomena, but what?


EDIT:

I changed the RAM around, and added other RAM and put the old hard drive in there. It POSTed and windows resumed. But after doing a reboot, it doesn't come back on, no POST.

 

[PandaMarketer]

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The good thing is that it takes 3 to 10 trials to get it to boot, but when it does boot, there's no problems.

The bad thing is that it cannot reboot. If you select restart, when it shuts down, the CMOS can't rePOST so it beeps the "bad video" or "cannot initialize video" codes. A manual power cycle is required.

The ugly thing is I ended up breaking off the plastic molding to the hard drive's SATA data port. The flat pins are still in tact, but the plastic L piece is gone. I have the long part of that piece,but the short piece is missing.

I'm going to have to transfer everything to the new HDD eventually once I lick this POST problem.


EDIT: Even though it doesn't fit in the housing, I temporarlily connected a 400W power supply to see if that would cure it of the sometimes-not-sometimes-yes POST. But that did not fix the problem.