Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
ARW wrote:
polygonum wrote:
On 02/11/2013 16:35, Matthias Czech wrote:
Am 02.11.2013 16:38, schrieb ARW:

It turns on and the fan runs. There is nothing else - no bleeps -
no screen. The led that shold flash when the hard drive is working
is not lighting up.
My mother's Acer (containig a similar mainbord) showed the same
failure. Reason was a dead CMOS-Battery. (CR2032). Could not
believe, that a weak cell can lead to such a behavior.
So check the voltage of this battery. More than 3Volts are
acceptable.
That is what I was going to point at.

If machine has been lying around, mostly unused, and especially, not
plugged in for long periods, the CMOS is a good bet.

Almost 100% not memory or hard drive as you should get a beep without
either. However it is always possible that the beep itself is broken.

OK. So the battery is dead. It read less than 1V when removed. Replaced
it with a new battery and no difference. However the new battery shoe
1.1V when in the computer!

Not actually tried it, but I'm not convinced a dead battery would stop the
BIOS running. It would stop it saving any changes, though.

I've had computers fail to boot due to a defective CMOS RAM backup
battery before now. Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook? tablet. It was a long time
ago, and I couldn't get it to boot from a standard HD, after I replaced
the battery either, it had a signature check in the BIOS for a genuine
Fujitsu MBR.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In article ,
John Williamson wrote:
Not actually tried it, but I'm not convinced a dead battery would stop
the BIOS running. It would stop it saving any changes, though.

I've had computers fail to boot due to a defective CMOS RAM backup
battery before now. Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook? tablet. It was a long time
ago, and I couldn't get it to boot from a standard HD, after I replaced
the battery either, it had a signature check in the BIOS for a genuine
Fujitsu MBR.

Failed to boot, yes. But nothing at all at switch on?

--
*It's this dirty because I washed it with your wife's knickers*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
John Williamson wrote:
Not actually tried it, but I'm not convinced a dead battery would stop
the BIOS running. It would stop it saving any changes, though.

I've had computers fail to boot due to a defective CMOS RAM backup
battery before now. Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook? tablet. It was a long time
ago, and I couldn't get it to boot from a standard HD, after I replaced
the battery either, it had a signature check in the BIOS for a genuine
Fujitsu MBR.

Failed to boot, yes. But nothing at all at switch on?

Yes. Not so much as a beep. Then after I sorted out the CMOS battery, it
beeped complaining that it couldn't find the HD or floppy.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 03/11/2013 18:24, John Williamson wrote:
The open circuit voltage, which is slightly more than what
you should be seeing, is 3.1 volts or so when fresh, dropping to 2.5
when flat.

Does that depend much on whether the battery is Alkaline or Lithium?

GB wrote:
On 03/11/2013 18:24, John Williamson wrote:
The open circuit voltage, which is slightly more than what
you should be seeing, is 3.1 volts or so when fresh, dropping to 2.5
when flat.

Does that depend much on whether the battery is Alkaline or Lithium?


If it's a proper CR2032, it's lithium. If it's not lithium, the part
number stamped on it shouldn't read CR2032.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 03/11/2013 20:56, John Williamson wrote:
GB wrote:
On 03/11/2013 18:24, John Williamson wrote:
The open circuit voltage, which is slightly more than what
you should be seeing, is 3.1 volts or so when fresh, dropping to 2.5
when flat.

Does that depend much on whether the battery is Alkaline or Lithium?


If it's a proper CR2032, it's lithium. If it's not lithium, the part
number stamped on it shouldn't read CR2032.

Good point.

I have in front of me a packet of CR2032 batteries labelled Tecnocell
Alkaline Premium Quality. Bought from the market.

I say batteries, rather than cells, because if I understand correctly
the alkaline cells are all 1.5V, so these would have to have two cells
inside them in order to produce 3v. So, yes, I'll accept that they are
just mis-labelled.

On 02/11/2013 15:38, ARW wrote:
Any ideas?

It turns on and the fan runs. There is nothing else - no bleeps - no screen.
The led that shold flash when the hard drive is working is not lighting up.

I suspect a duff HD but ideas are welcome.

It is bad news if the thing can't even manage basic self test beeps.

Obvious cause is that one of the PSU outputs is no longer in spec and
the motherboard has crowbarred it to protect itself, but this usually
blows the fuse or results in the magic smoke exiting spectacularly.

Even with a completely dead HD you should be able to go into BIOS mode
unless the thing has *very* fundamental hardware problems. I have had
one portable go bad this way in three decades. It became clear it was
hardware after I ran it from a bootable Linux CD and that also failed
with the same type of fault. Shortly afterwards it would not even get as
far as BIOS since it was the keyboard decoder hardware that failed.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 03/11/13 20:36, GB wrote:
On 03/11/2013 18:24, John Williamson wrote:
The open circuit voltage, which is slightly more than what
you should be seeing, is 3.1 volts or so when fresh, dropping to 2.5
when flat.

Does that depend much on whether the battery is Alkaline or Lithium?



More Nickel versus lithium

Nickel is 1-1.2V lithium is generally 3.5-4V


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

"Matthias Czech" wrote in message
...
Am 03.11.2013 10:53, schrieb ARW:
polygonum wrote:
On 02/11/2013 16:35, Matthias Czech wrote:
Am 02.11.2013 16:38, schrieb ARW:

It turns on and the fan runs. There is nothing else - no bleeps -
no screen. The led that shold flash when the hard drive is working
is not lighting up.
My mother's Acer (containig a similar mainbord) showed the same
failure. Reason was a dead CMOS-Battery. (CR2032). Could not
believe, that a weak cell can lead to such a behavior.
So check the voltage of this battery. More than 3Volts are
acceptable.
That is what I was going to point at.

If machine has been lying around, mostly unused, and especially, not
plugged in for long periods, the CMOS is a good bet.

Almost 100% not memory or hard drive as you should get a beep without
either. However it is always possible that the beep itself is broken.

OK. So the battery is dead. It read less than 1V when removed. Replaced
it
with a new battery and no difference. However the new battery shoe 1.1V
when
in the computer!

Maybe the 'new one' wasn't that new or was DOA.
Try an other 'known good' one. Check battery-voltage _before_ insertion
under load. i.e- with a resistor (value between 1 amd 10 Kiloohms)
parallel to the battery. Voltage should not drop below 3V.

Other possible causes for the voltage-drop:
-CLR_CMOS-jumper in the wrong position
-Short-circuit on the board. Any signs of corrosion/leaked electrolyte
at/near the battery-holder?


--

OK. This my first post using this computer. This is the computer that first
died. I only use it to grab stuff from the CCTV and upload it onto YouTube.
My main computer died when I was messing about trying to get some leads off
it to connect the internet to the girlfiends laptop as a good friend of mine
had visitors and I used her laptop to get this video from his CCTV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgDV1...t4sIh2B2fXLALw
So thets two computer buggered in two days.

And the fix for this computer. I bought another battery from elsewhere. And
the non working battery cost £3, the working one cost 99p. Thank to to
everyone who helped and in particuklar to you Matthias.

Cheer

Adam

In article , ARW
writes

OK. This my first post using this computer. This is the computer that first
died. I only use it to grab stuff from the CCTV and upload it onto YouTube.
My main computer died when I was messing about trying to get some leads off
it to connect the internet to the girlfiends laptop as a good friend of mine
had visitors and I used her laptop to get this video from his CCTV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgDV1...iew&list=UUz1x
wkml6t4sIh2B2fXLALw
So thets two computer buggered in two days.

And the fix for this computer. I bought another battery from elsewhere. And
the non working battery cost £3, the working one cost 99p. Thank to to
everyone who helped and in particuklar to you Matthias.

Glad you're sorted.

the recording, I assume that is what they call 'going equipped'.

Maybe go for a new thread for the other comp, too many replies here.
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .