On Monday 24 November 2003 06:33 am, Michael George wrote:
I have an ASUS A7V system running SuSE8.2. I had to power it down last night because of a power failure that the UPS couldn't endure.
This morning, when I turn it on, all the lights come on as normal and the fans start up, I hear the drive whir, but after about 1sec, it all stops and the power LED just blinks. I think this indicates sleep mode.
Michael, it could be almost anything! It could be something as simple as you didnt reset the UPS charging circuit! Check its circuit breaker then I would suspect power supply/fan first, then maybe a memory or video problem. Think of it like you do a car. If you turn a switch and nothing happens, you dont replace the muffler first, you check the battery.
Could the power supply be choking on the load and the system panics into sleep mode? The PS is a StarTech and little over a year old, so it should be okay.
It's not all that uncommon for things to go south on startup. The biggest load on the power supply is on starting all that stuff. If you happen to have a small ps, turnon could be to much for it. If you have a voltmeter check the line voltage. Make sure all the fans start up when you apply power.
Could apcupsd somehow have put the system into sleep mode and that's where it's going to go when it powers up?
It's possible. unplug the connection or go directly to the wall socket and see what happens.
Could the BIOS be hosed? If that's possible, is there a way to reset it? Any help at all would be appreciated. I don't think the system croaked overnight (while it was off), so I don't want to replace it now. There's got to be a way to determine what might be wrong...
It's not likely the BIOS. The troubleshooting sequence is a matter of personal experience/preference. Some will check the same things but in a different sequence. The challenge is to not introduce more problems than you start with. Just take it step by step. Looking for the obvious first. If nothing works I would start removing loads to see if that is a problem. BUT a word of caution, If you disconect a cable or remove a card, make sure you put it back correctly. Being careless in reconnecting cables can create even more troubles. All my machines run contnuously so when they die it's usually a fan or ps. And the ps is usually a bad fan, too. If you can't turn a fan with very little pressure it's probably bad. All you need to get a machine to start is a video, memory and the powersupply. Whenever I have this kind of problem I first check all the fans to see that they rotate freely. Then pull all the boards except the video, disconnect the drives, then turn it on. If the powr stays on, then I start adding stuff back beginning with the floppy. If it won't come up with just the vid, and mem, then I put in another supply. If that doesnt work then I substitute a new memory chip. If that fails, then I look next at the video card. Most often it's the ps or a fan. If a fan craps out it can take a cpu with it. Anyway, you should have a few things to look at now. Good luck, richard