Absolutely bizarre problem... Please, please read.

[aNtHrAx323]

I'm building a fleet of new systems for a local attorney, and the specs are as follows:

• Pentium 4 2.4C CPUs (800 MHz bus, Northwood cores)
• Intel D875PBZ motherboards (rev. 205, Northwood-only, latest BIOS v P33)
• 1024 MB PC3200 DDR RAM (2x 512 MB sticks, one per channel)
• 74 GB Western Digital Raptor HDDs
• Sony FDDs, Sony CD-RW/DVD-ROM IDE combo drives
• Albatron GeForce4 MX480 video cards (AGP)
• Antec SX635IIB cases (w/ 350 watt PSUs)

I built them all at the same time, but refrained from installing the hard drives in all but the first. I fully set up and configured Windows XP SP2 along with Office 2003 on this drive, ran the OEM system distribution tools (to clear product IDs and all first-run config data after getting the system stable, all updates installed, and the latest drivers), and then used "dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb" under the Gentoo LiveCD to clone the drives. I cloned two drives, and upon shutting down the first system, removing the extra drive (the destination clone drive), and attempting to power it back up, nothing. Jack fuckin shit. The system just up and died on me. No beep codes, nothing weird. Just no video and 4 seconds of holding the power button down to shut the damned thing off. Anyone have any idea what could've gone wrong? These things haven't even begun stress tests yet, so I can't imagine how it could have screwed up like this. I installed all the drives I cloned in the other machines and they work perfectly and have begun their stress tests. It's just this first machine that I can't get to come back to life now. Please help.

The only thing I can think of that would help me diagnose this thing is one of those PCI POST cards that display diagnostic info spooled to port 80h, but I have no remote clue where to get one locally seeing as I have standing plans to install these systems on Sunday. Any tips? I wish they'd just integrate the damned display on the board like they did on my EPoX 8K7As...

 

[dualblade]

I'm building a fleet of new systems for a local attorney, and the specs are as follows:

• Pentium 4 2.4C CPUs (800 MHz bus, Northwood cores)
• Intel D875PBZ motherboards (rev. 205, Northwood-only, latest BIOS v P33)
• 1024 MB PC3200 DDR RAM (2x 512 MB sticks, one per channel)
• 74 GB Western Digital Raptor HDDs
• Sony FDDs, Sony CD-RW/DVD-ROM IDE combo drives
• Albatron GeForce4 MX480 video cards (AGP)
• Antec SX635IIB cases (w/ 350 watt PSUs)

I built them all at the same time, but refrained from installing the hard drives in all but the first. I fully set up and configured Windows XP SP2 along with Office 2003 on this drive, ran the OEM system distribution tools (to clear product IDs and all first-run config data after getting the system stable, all updates installed, and the latest drivers), and then used "dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb" under the Gentoo LiveCD to clone the drives. I cloned two drives, and upon shutting down the first system, removing the extra drive (the destination clone drive), and attempting to power it back up, nothing. Jack fuckin shit. The system just up and died on me. No beep codes, nothing weird. Just no video and 4 seconds of holding the power button down to shut the damned thing off. Anyone have any idea what could've gone wrong? These things haven't even begun stress tests yet, so I can't imagine how it could have screwed up like this. I installed all the drives I cloned in the other machines and they work perfectly and have begun their stress tests. It's just this first machine that I can't get to come back to life now. Please help.

The only thing I can think of that would help me diagnose this thing is one of those PCI POST cards that display diagnostic info spooled to port 80h, but I have no remote clue where to get one locally seeing as I have standing plans to install these systems on Sunday. Any tips? I wish they'd just integrate the damned display on the board like they did on my EPoX 8K7As...

not sure what troubleshooting you've tried, but here's what i'd do:

1) reset cmos via jumper/shorting points on board
2) if that fails then try the video card in a known good system
3) if the video card is fine, try a pci video card in case the agp slot on that motherboard somehow bit the dust
4) if not that then remove/unplug anything not necessary for boot (extra cards/ide/floppy cables
5) if not that then reseat memory and cpu
6) try known good memory and cpu if that doesn't help

 

[MaMMa]

A similar issue has happened to me. I setup a new pc, everything is up and good running flawless. Then I restart and it never comes up agian. Little LED light let and that was it. I've tried everything there is as well as what is listed above. The board just craped out for some damn reason, shit happens. It was supposed to be ready that next morning too.

 

[corebreach]

May I ask just why your local attorney needs Raptors in their computers?

 

[Buckus]

yep, sounds like it just up and died on you. I am also wondering why attorney's need Raptor drives, but hey, whatever they want, that's what they get, eh? If they were going that high performance (I guess it helps type out depositions faster?), I would have also gone at least a 3.2 P4, but that's just me.

I'd try setting up the computer out of the case and seeing what happens. Did it happen that you were swapping drives while the computer was still plugged in? Since the computer is still technically "On" when it's plugged in, it could be plugging the hard drives into the power did something bad to the power supply, or sent a surge through the board somehow. Heck, anything's possible. I'd say, get a replacement board to test it out, and chalk it up to bad luck if that's the case.

 

[corebreach]

Think about it--a 3.2 ghz P4 is totally unnecessary for office work, don't you think? aNtHrAx323 made the wise decision to use Intel motherboards instead of a 3rd party's mobo, which could be less reliable in some cases. That's why I'm confused about the Raptors; where lost work equals lost money, I would want a proven and rugged 7200 RPM drive.

 

[Buckus]

Think about it--a 3.2 ghz P4 is totally unnecessary for office work, don't you think?

As is a Raptor. My point was that if they are willing to spend the extra $$ for Raptors, why not get 3.2 Ghz P4's as well. Why not outfit them with 2 GB memory? DVD-writers and Audigy sound cards with 7.1 speaker setups. I would think that dual-monitors would increase their productivity more than the relatively little gain they would see from a Raptor drive. And in any case, being as they are a law office, I would also suspect they would want some kind of proven backup technology, or a filer server or something that can back everything up daily. Just my two cents.

But yeah, your motherboard could be hosed.

 

[ohnnyj]

It was supposed to be ready that next morning too.

It always seems to happen with computers. When you need them the most that is when they won't work. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. For instance, I was going to print out a paper I was writing all night but thought I could do so in the morning since I was tired as heck. So I wake up a little early and sure enough the printer doesn't want to work. I don't remeber what I ended up doing, but this is just a small sampling of the wonderful experiences computers can give you. Of course they aren't always bad, but when they are they are down right evil.

And not to be completely rude and not acknowledge the OP I will say that I can understand your frustration. It sounds like it may be rotten apple in the bunch, with a number of systems and having one give up is nothing odd. It is probably one component that went bad (most likely the mobo, memory, or PSU) and with the total number of pieces you had to put together and had only one come up bad, that is a pretty good ratio I must say. Hope you get your problem solved and they computers installed like you wanted, sorry I can't be of any more help.

 

[darktiger]

Why would attorney's need 1gb of memory??? I would imagine 512 would be enough....Unless they game, do a lot of photoediting, videoedit, etc.....

 

[Xrave]

It's obvious that these attorneys get their game on during lunch breaks.

 

[defakto]

He probably recommened the raptors and the 3.2's to them, doesn't sound like these are really tailored towards the actual needs of the customer. Unless they really did say, "Hey, we want some of those raptors, and how about 3.2 gig processor and a gig of ram."

I'd say, though, it's probably power supply, or motherboard to start.

 

[Astral Abyss]

yep, sounds like it just up and died on you. I am also wondering why attorney's need Raptor drives, but hey, whatever they want, that's what they get, eh? If they were going that high performance (I guess it helps type out depositions faster?), I would have also gone at least a 3.2 P4, but that's just me.

I'm guessing they liked the 5 year warranty.

 

[SmokeRngs]

I'm guessing they liked the 5 year warranty.

This was my thought.

Also, check to make sure there all the power connections and everything are good. You will be surprised at how many times a cable can come loose while adding or taking out a piece of hardware. Check all cables, cards, RAM etc.

 

[aNtHrAx323]

Thanks for all the input. As of posting time, I had tried booting the system with the BIOS jumper in recovery mode, as well as in emergency flash mode, with PCI video cards (multiple were tested), different memory, and with no peripherals attached. I ended up pulling the CMOS battery for a few minutes as well, all to no avail.

Funny thing is I left it be for about an hour after that as I continued setting up the other machines, and when I returned to the first one, it suddenly worked again. Fuck me in the ass, I have no clue what was going on. But hell, it works now, so I'm happy .

With regard to the raptors and the gig of RAM, this guy just doesn't want to upgrade for a long time to come. RAM isn't too expensive, and the Raptors were the easiest way to give him near-SCSI-level performance (he's just obsessed with the buzz-word since he had UW SCSI in his original workstation... 7200 RPM though, he just thought in inherently made his system faster, so I obliged). I think you'd be happy too if you went through the next 2 or 3 releases of Windows without having to upgrade a goddamned thing .

I also went ahead and loaded the SOBs with fans (1 exhaust in rear, 2 intakes in front - one being in the HD caddy to keep the Raptor healthy, and the other being a simple intake fan), all wired to the motherboard and thermally controlled, so the systems are silent and shouldn't ever have any conceivable maintenance other than the occasional dusting. I'm also throwing in a 1-year comprehensive warranty with all the machines (software and hardware, on-call, etc.), so the fewer trips I need to make, the better. Plus the guy is really fluent with Windows and knows how *not* to botch things, and knows very, very well the telltale signs of spyware and viruses, so I don't see any emergency visits anytime soon. I went ahead and picked up an extra D875PBZ to have on hand should any of his, or any of the other business-class systems I've built lately on the same board, have any problems.

Whoa, my buzz is gettin going

Time to go start the burn-ins...