|
Check, reset cards, cables, then check the motherboard
Question: Recently, I needed to install a new heat sink fan in my
486 DX2-66 computer.
I got that in OK, but when I was installing it, my controller card
got half unplugged.
When I turned my computer on nothing happened. Just a blank screen.
It wouldn't boot up or anything.
Then something sounded like it was shorting out.
When I realized the controller card was half unplugged, I pushed
it back in.
Now everything works fine, EXCEPT for my floppy drives. When I put
a disk in the drive, Windows 3.1 says that it is not formatted. This
happens with every disk I have. I can't use my 3.5'' floppies at all.
Please HELP!
Is it my controller card, or motherboard, or something else?
-- K.H.
Answer: Best case, you need to unseat and reseat all of your cards.
Worst case: your motherboard may have inherited the functionality
of a breakfast waffle.
Before you do anything, be sure to ground yourself. A refresher on
that is at the end of the column.
"First thing I would try is taking out and re-seating all the cards,"
suggests Mathew Fiszer of Logicorp Service Group in Edmonton.
He should know.
I installed a second hard drive a year ago. My machine wouldn't boot
after I was done. Fiszer kindly made it work again without calling
me names. Apparently, I'd forgotten to plug one of the cables back
in.
Consequently, his e-mail solution added, "Also, checking all the
internal cables is a good idea. Unplug them and re-plug them back
in."
If that fails, try to seat the controller card in a different slot.
"That way you can almost eliminate a motherboard problem," Fiszer
said.
"If the controller card does not work in the other slot then most
likely the controller card is at fault."
If it does work in a different slot, then the original slot could
be faulty. If that doesn't solve the problem, the next step requires
trying a different controller card.
"If all else fails, it's your motherboard," he advised.
A local computer store technician might be willing to have a look-see
for you. If you're a regular customer, maybe they'll do it for free.
By the way, a heat sink, for the uninitiated, is a piece of metal
that carries heat away from an electronic component.
In computers, they're usually glued onto processor chips.
Heat sinks often have fins to increase their surface area. They occasionally
have fans attached as well.
To read more about these gizmos and to see a picture of one, look
up http://www.iercdya.com/p5.html
on the Web.
As I said before, it's important to ground yourself before working
on the insides of a computer so you don't fry any other components.
The power should be turned off before the system unit is opened,
but it should also be left plugged into the wall socket.
Computers use a grounded three-prong power cord.
In the event of a static electricity discharge from the person servicing
the computer into the components in the box, the electricity can escape
through the ground lead in the power cord and safely be eliminated
via the building wiring.
If the power cord is left unplugged and the parts inside are shocked,
the electricity will stay in the system unit and damage some or all
of the sensitive electronics inside.
As an added precaution, always touch the power supply or another
metal part of the system unit to discharge any static electricity
safely before starting work.
|
|||||||||||||
Adding RAM is easy, 
Books about this topic:
   |