Posted: 2/20/2010 5:32:07 AM EDT
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Over the past two weeks my computer has been failing to boot. It started intermittently where I would get the following message upon the start of the boot cycle:
Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0 Bios Rom checksum error Keyboard error or no keyboard present Detecting floppy drive A media Insert system disk and press enter I found if I un-hooked my keyboard and moved it to a diffrent USB port, then rebooted it would start. The past few days though I have been having less success doing this where I would have to cycle through my USB ports and maybe after 10-12 restarts it would finally boot up. I figured my keyboard was just dieing so I opted to just leave my PC on permanently after the last time this problem happened. When I was able to overcome this bootup problem, the computer worked fine. Unfortunately, my PC must have tried to auto-install some updates and when it restarted itself it couldn't boot. I found it the next morning with the above error message on the screen. Since then (yesterday) I have been unable to get it to boot using my trick to unhook the keyboard and try a different USB port. I thought my keyboard had finally died, so I bought a new USB one. That didn't work. I thought perhaps my USB ports or USB controller on the motherboard had gone bad, so I tried a serial keyboard. No luck. At this point, I don't know what to do outside taking it in to Best Buy to have their tech guys (Geek Squad?) repair it. Here are my PC stats/components. It is 2 years old and was purchased from an on-line retailer, DigitalStorm (sending it back to them is an option, but I don't want to pay the shipping + repair cost whereas if I take it locally I just pay the repair cost). CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz Mobo: EVGA nForce 650i Ultra Ram: 2 GB DDR2 Corsair 1066 MHz OS: MS Vista Home Premium Anything I can try out at home to correct this problem before I take it into a shop? Thanks! |
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Not sure what a checkcum error is...but it sounds messy....
ETA: some possibilities to try... CMOS battery. Take it out. Look on your motherboard for a little disk battery...take it out and let the machine sit for a few minutes. This SHOULD clear and reset it. Try to restart.... Failing that... on start up...tap your Del key to get to your BIOS...should be a "load defaults" option...save and exit...restart... If that doesn't work...well...*sigh* have a floppy or CD you can burn to? Flash your BIOS |
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Not sure what a checkcum error is...but it sounds messy.... Yeah. I've Googled it, and from what I have read, it appears it could be numerous things like: Corruption of the Bios Failure of the keyboard controller chip on the mobo Mobo battery is dead Mobo itself is going bad Russia and columbia are invading America via paratrooper drops |
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Not sure what a checkcum error is...but it sounds messy.... Yeah. I've Googled it, and from what I have read, it appears it could be numerous things like: Corruption of the Bios Failure of the keyboard controller chip on the mobo Mobo battery is dead Mobo itself is going bad Russia and columbia are invading America via paratrooper drops Added a couple things to my original smart ass reply ;) checkSum error...not cum...that's just gross. |
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can you press F1 or something on startup and get to the BIOS utilities? Sometimes there's diagnostics you can run from there. Some manufacturers also have diagnostic disks you can boot with which probably wouldnt do you much good since you can't boot No. The bootup sequence isn't even progressing that far. I just found this little gem on a Google search: BIOS tests the internal operations of the keyboard controller chip (8042). Failure here is normally due to the keyboard chip
Looks like I'm in for a trip to the repair shop. |
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Not sure what a checkcum error is...but it sounds messy.... ETA: some possibilities to try... CMOS battery. Take it out. Look on your motherboard for a little disk battery...take it out and let the machine sit for a few minutes. This SHOULD clear and reset it. Try to restart.... Failing that... on start up...tap your Del key to get to your BIOS...should be a "load defaults" option...save and exit...restart... If that doesn't work...well...*sigh* have a floppy or CD you can burn to? Flash your BIOS this |
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ETA: some possibilities to try... CMOS battery. Take it out. Look on your motherboard for a little disk battery...take it out and let the machine sit for a few minutes. This SHOULD clear and reset it. Try to restart.... I think this just made things worse. I took out the battery and waited 5 minutes and then replaced it. Now, I don't even get to a boot up screen where I see a the Checksum error message. As soon as I power on the PC it just lets out a long beep, pauses, long beep, pause, etc. |
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ETA: some possibilities to try... CMOS battery. Take it out. Look on your motherboard for a little disk battery...take it out and let the machine sit for a few minutes. This SHOULD clear and reset it. Try to restart.... I think this just made things worse. I took out the battery and waited 5 minutes and then replaced it. Now, I don't even get to a boot up screen where I see a the Checksum error message. As soon as I power on the PC it just lets out a long beep, pauses, long beep, pause, etc. Grr...ok. Not getting to a boot up screen isn't necessarily bad...it's just trying to tell you what's wrong. It talks through beeps... :) ie, not worse...just...different. Computers are fickle. Beep Codes Yours should be AMI based. Count how many before it stops all together...the documents to the right on the page will step you through what to do. I'd also unseat, reseat my RAM. And of course...remember to touch some metal on the case before doing anything inside the case... Failing that...it does get frustrating to say the least. I've spent literally hours troubleshooting one of my PCs before with similar problems...if you decide to go the tech route...skip Geek Squad...find a small shop that's privately owned. It'll be cheaper and you'll get better service. |
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ETA: some possibilities to try... CMOS battery. Take it out. Look on your motherboard for a little disk battery...take it out and let the machine sit for a few minutes. This SHOULD clear and reset it. Try to restart.... I think this just made things worse. I took out the battery and waited 5 minutes and then replaced it. Now, I don't even get to a boot up screen where I see a the Checksum error message. As soon as I power on the PC it just lets out a long beep, pauses, long beep, pause, etc. Grr...ok. Not getting to a boot up screen isn't necessarily bad...it's just trying to tell you what's wrong. It talks through beeps... :) ie, not worse...just...different. Computers are fickle. Beep Codes Yours should be AMI based. Count how many before it stops all together...the documents to the right on the page will step you through what to do. I'd also unseat, reseat my RAM. And of course...remember to touch some metal on the case before doing anything inside the case... Failing that...it does get frustrating to say the least. I've spent literally hours troubleshooting one of my PCs before with similar problems...if you decide to go the tech route...skip Geek Squad...find a small shop that's privately owned. It'll be cheaper and you'll get better service. Mine is just making a continual, repeated long beep (beeeeeeeeeep, pause for a few seconds, beeeeeeeeeep, pause for a few seconds, etc.). None of the beep codes listed match what mine is doing. I stopped counting at 30 beeps, it just keeps going. I also reseated my RAM, no lucj. Computer now when I power it up doesnlt even get to the boot phase, it just powers up, fans come on, then the beeps start. |
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Personally, I would just replace the motherboard, cpu and possibly ram.
Not that that is what is wrong necessarily, but if it is IS the MB there is no point in spending money repairing a 2 year old computer when you could practically have a new upgraded one for a little more $. |
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Be prepared, this is in your future, very near future! 
http://www.minneapolispcrepair.com/images/bsod.jpg I would be ecstatic at this point if my computer even booted up enough to get to that point. I get nothing now except the sound of the fans and that beeping. |
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Is it beeps or tones?
If beeps remove and reset all cards in the box. If tones, swap out memory cards, if only one Remove and reset, If multiple remove all and swip and swap. Record the beeps and tones if possible. I just went thru this and found a bad memory card. Ended fixing on the cheap and doubled my ram. Unplug and replug every thing you can see. Blow all the dust off everything. Clean the hell out of it, fans too Get back with results. My bet is we will have you back in the saddle They are like an old small block Chevy. Someone somewhere here has a solution. And in future avoid Russian teens.com They will nuke your HDD from orbit 
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Be prepared, this is in your future, very near future!
http://www.minneapolispcrepair.com/images/bsod.jpg I would be ecstatic at this point if my computer even booted up enough to get to that point. I get nothing now except the sound of the fans and that beeping. My reading comprehension is low today...not enough coffee until now :) Award BIOS codes (didn't notice the Award Bios in the first post) Yours is saying memory error..."Repeating (endless loop) Memory error Check for improperly seated or missing memory." Take it down to one stick and restart. No boot...try with other.. Also...should be a little red button on your MB next to the battery you took out. Push and hold that for a few secs. Again..failing all that...find a local shop and let them run some diagnostics on it. Steer away from Geek Squad...their "techs" aren't generally A+ certified and they charge way too much. Most of the time, a local guy will look at it free of charge and just charge you for the fix...Geek Squad will charge you for every little thing they can. ETA: Last time I had a similar issue...I bought some cheap RAM to put in to get it boot. My motherboard was eating the RAM I had...it loved the cheap stuff for some reason. But the clocking on the stuff I had it hated and burnt up. Thankfully I use Mushkin and 2 RMAs later they sent a RAM that they had made changes to to better work the MB I had... |
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Be prepared, this is in your future, very near future!
http://www.minneapolispcrepair.com/images/bsod.jpg I would be ecstatic at this point if my computer even booted up enough to get to that point. I get nothing now except the sound of the fans and that beeping. My reading comprehension is low today...not enough coffee until now :) Award BIOS codes (didn't notice the Award Bios in the first post) Yours is saying memory error..."Repeating (endless loop) Memory error Check for improperly seated or missing memory." Take it down to one stick and restart. No boot...try with other.. Problem solved!!! Apparently one of my two 1 GB DDR2 Corsair 1066 MHz Dominator Dual Channel Extreme Performance sticks of RAM has gone bad. Thanks for the help all! Do you think I should update my BIOS also? |
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Be prepared, this is in your future, very near future!
http://www.minneapolispcrepair.com/images/bsod.jpg I would be ecstatic at this point if my computer even booted up enough to get to that point. I get nothing now except the sound of the fans and that beeping. My reading comprehension is low today...not enough coffee until now :) Award BIOS codes (didn't notice the Award Bios in the first post) Yours is saying memory error..."Repeating (endless loop) Memory error Check for improperly seated or missing memory." Take it down to one stick and restart. No boot...try with other.. Problem solved!!! Apparently one of my two 1 GB DDR2 Corsair 1066 MHz Dominator Dual Channel Extreme Performance sticks of RAM has gone bad. Thanks for the help all! Do you think I should update my BIOS also? No...if you've never had problems out of it before...BIOS falls into the "not broke don't fix it" area... Look into getting an RMA for the memory...should be covered under warranty. Glad that's all it was...and sorry for a bit of a runaround. Not enough coffee after a night of drinking doesn't make for good online tech support
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