BIOS stuck at first stage

[Savagexii]

okay, a quick question reguarding a BIOS problem i have encountered whilst trying to troubleshoot someone elses buggered computer.

The original problem i had was shortly after booting into windows 98se, the monitor would go into standby and the system appeared to be unresponsive, i.e no HDD light flashing when i pressed combination of keys etc, thus requiring a reboot.
I decided to have a stab at connecting a different PSU (more powerful one) incase it was a power issue, and after a tricky time setting this up (the PSU the troublesome pc came with was hard wired to the power switch on the case), i eventually set about booting her up with the new PSU, this has introduced a new problem into the mix however, upon booting into the first BIOS screen where it checks memory and NVRAM, both of which appear to test OK, the bios then refuses to go any further, and just hangs there whilst displaying "WAIT...".
This same thing happens when i replace the PSU with the old one again too.

Have i damaged the mobo/bios in using a more powerful PSU in an older system? I have tried clearing the bios but nothing changed. Any tips?

Thanks in advance.

[Violator]

You say you've cleared the BIOS, have you actually cleared the CMOS and then loaded the default settings in the BIOS?.

[sjgill]

Try taking the motherboard battery out for a while to allow the cmos to completely clear of any settings and put the bios back to defaults. I've found this works sometimes even if clearing the cmos by jumpers does not.

Can you get into the bios at all?

[Savagexii]

Sorry for the delay in reply, have not tried taking the battery out yet, but i certainly left the jumper set to "clear" for a fair few mins at least, but reguardless of that the bios remains unfunctional in that once it's checked the ram, and reaches the "WAIT..." stage, that's it, i can't access the BIOS at all, DEL does nothing. I'll try the battery suggestion later, but if that doesn't work i'm starting to think it's knackered.

[Dack]

Have you disconnected the IDE & floppy cables - if you have one of those grounded (by having a faulty component or no power to them) it can cause the symptoms you describe.

[Savagexii]

Have you disconnected the IDE & floppy cables - if you have one of those grounded (by having a faulty component or no power to them) it can cause the symptoms you describe.


That'll be the problem then! I had disconnected the CD-ROM and CDRW drives from the power cables earlier, so i'll take them out fully in a bit, thanks! Didn't occur to me at all that :) Assuming that works, it's back to square one, finding out why the system crashes shortly after reaching desktop. :brickwall

[Dack]

Sounds like graphics driver or messed up explorer issues from what you've described - what about entering safe mode first and running a SFC.

[Savagexii]

Yes i believe it is a graphics driver issue too now, after uninstalling it, it all seems to be running ok so far, trouble is i have no other cards to try as it's a PCI card, so i'll have to try some different drivers. The mobo has onboard graphics but i havn't a clue what it is as i can't find info on the mobo barely at all, so not much chance of locating the drivers, and the worst thing is you can't disable it in BIOS, the option doesnt exist so it just sits there in device manager waiting for drivers so i had to disable it in there instead.

[Dack]

If you get the bios string and then have a look on Wims Bios page (http://www.wimsbios.com/) you might get a clue as to the manufacturer / model of the board. This should then tell you what drivers etc. and maybe get a motherboard manual

[Savagexii]

Thanks for the link, i managed to find out what the model number of the mobo is, unfortunately every link i find relating to it is either dead or simply unhelpful, at the moment i think the best i can do is try different display drivers, which i'll try later on.

The manufacturer is PCCHIPS, and the model is apparently M598LMR, i've been googling it but to no avail, all i could find were references to it.

[Dack]

Best site to visit is usually:
http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/

For Pc Chips related stuff - the forum is very good there. (http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142-bin/cgi-bin/ibrd/ikonboard.cgi)

[Savagexii]

Excellent find :) Thanks for those!

Will have a shift through them forums, i was about ready to give up after it crashed in safemode today ruling out driver issues at least. If i had a spare pci gfx card i could at least rule that out aswell. BIOS flashing next, if that doesnt work it'll get a kick up the backside :)