Weird Problem....

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

I just had the weirdest call of my life....I am up for ideas, as I'm totally stumped by this one, and odds are this is going to be on my desk on monday again since my group has to deal with all the truly strange issues.

Ok, here is the problem:

system has two primary problems, won't read from the floppy, and the keyboard doesn't work. This system at this time has no OS on it, so these problems exist on BIOS level. First, we tried to isolate the keyboard issue. Tried different keyboards, didn't work. This is a ps/2 keyboard so there isn't any real driver loading to do in order to have it work during boot. Odd, but we decide we'll deal with that later and try to get the floppy drive working. We try a different floppy disk, nope, try a known good floppy drive...nope, try another floppy cable...nope. Out of curiosity we clear the CMOS on the board. After clearing the CMOS, the floppy drive not only doesn't read, but gets no power at all. Why clearing the CMOS would cause the floppy to get no power, I have no idea. Either way, we figure it's a weird system board, so we order another.

Today we put in the new system board. It has the same exact problem. We go through the same tests with the same results. This time we build it outside the box. It sounds strange, but sometimes if the case is damaged it can short out the system and make it do odd stuff. Well, we build the system outside the box, and it doesn't change a thing. So we put it back in the box. Well, once it is in the box, we try to start it up again. This time the box starts frying. A beautiful puff of black smoke arises from the system along with a burning smell. Well, since it is obviously not the system board causing the initial problem, we put the old system board back in. Old system board acts just like it used to. System still does not have a working floppy or keyboard.

At this point, since a board got fried and the floppy could be a power issue, we put in a new power supply. Now with the new power supply we still do not have a working floppy or keyboard. I'm stumped. Any ideas? (btw, my current plan is to do an exorcist on the machine, I suspect it to be posessed.)

Comments

[wildkard.livejournal.com]

try a new power supply. Maybe the current one is damaged or else is just too low a voltage for all the components hooked up + the board

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

power supply has been replaced per last paragraph :)

[diji.livejournal.com]

"I need an old priest and a young priest!"

You went with what I would have... new P/S, new MLB, same old issues. I'd say try to isolate as much as possible from the equation... remove all drives (HDDs and CDROMs), and any add on cards you can get rid of. Might try another Video Card. It sounds like there's a short, something's being grounded, or something is sucking up too much power.

If that doesn't work, I don't think replacing other parts would be cost effective... new PC time.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

we took the machine down to barebones, no extra drives in it at all. another video card is a possibility, but that would just be weird for it to be causing the keyboard and floppy problem. it could be sucking up the power though. odd, but this whole thing is.

trust me I would love to do a new pc, unfortunately our process for that is currently in debate between our group and the group the accountants, so that won't be happening for a couple weeks, so that option is out.

[diji.livejournal.com]

You can always go with the argument that it will cost more in labor and money to try to figure all this out than it would cost for a new system.

This problem is pretty trippy.

[weaselking.livejournal.com]

well most have beat me to the core suggestions

rip it all down to the core, and replace the power source, then install a part at a time, sound like there is something with the power supply or something feeding off the power supply that is killing it.

when you install the idavidual parts and connect to the power supply make sure each part has its own cable so you dont have 2 things riding the same power cable to the power source

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

yep, everything has its own cable, have changed the power supply, and tried it at various power sources, including measuring the voltages to make sure they are right. box has been ripped down to core. I agree with your assessment that it sounds like there is something killinig it...but what?

Re:

[weaselking.livejournal.com]

well next step would be to find out what it exactiaclly it was, possibly one of the parts i would say set up a test system, and swap one part at a time till you find it.

short of bench testing ever single thing the long and tedious way, that is a bit fast. but unfortunatly you might find the bad part the hard way

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

you're probably right, only way I will find that problem. will try that on monday and update with the results. (have to get other stuff done at the moment). thanks :)

Re:

[weaselking.livejournal.com]

no problem, been in the same spot working on haunted military computers

[siouxcourtesan.livejournal.com]

It has to be a power problem of some kind; the only constant in this equation was the power itself.
The problem might be dirty power; try another socket, or a surge-protector power strip.
Aside from that you might try getting a new install of the BIOS for the board, if the power surged it might have wiped something out.
If nothing else works, call the city council and find out if there's an Indian burial ground under the building.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

have tried new power sources, no luck. would try a new BIOS, we need to flash it anyway with the most current bios because of the system board replacement, but we can't do that without a working keyboard :)

[c0c0c0.livejournal.com]

Are you using the same monitor? Same video card? same prossessor?

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

same monitor...yes. same video card..yes. same processor, no. :)

Re:

[c0c0c0.livejournal.com]

Try a diffrent monitor and processor.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

if it was the monitor that would offically be the strangest thing ever, processor was replaced, assume you mean video card. Will try that on monday and update with results.

Re:

[c0c0c0.livejournal.com]

It would be the strangest thing ever, and I have seen it. Went out to a client's house 9 times, with weird ghostly symptoms and ended up being monitor.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the awesome suggestions so far, keep them coming :) you guys rawk.

[chupchup.livejournal.com]

So what part of the box fried? It sounds like something in there has a serious electrical problem and is causing parts to fail. Have you tested the floppy, keyboard, power supply on working systems to ensure they still work themselves?
Also, we could use some basic information about the system you have. Version and manufacturers of BIOS, CPU, RAM, keyboard, floppy, chassis and power supply, for starters. You haven't even said if you're working on a PClone, it could be an RS/6000 Unix box from IBM for all we know.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

yes, all parts have been tested on working systems. the machine I am working on is a pc. Honestly most pc's are pretty standard. If you have a specific thought as to a specific brand of part that might be causing this to fail, please email me and I will let you know. Posting the specifics and manufacturer of this box would come way too close to violating my NDA.

I can tell you this.

At present the box has a 250W power supply, a PIII 800 mhz processor, no hard drive, no cd drive, a standard floppy drive, 512 mb pc133 ram. It is an IBM ps/2 keyboard. Hope that is enough info for you. thanks.

Re:

[chupchup.livejournal.com]

Most PCs are not "pretty standard," unless the system you're looking at is perfectly compliant with a litany of "industry standards," and few or none are fully compliant.

Many major vendors have proprietary "enhancements" to the so-called standard PC interfaces. For instance, my IBM PS/2 Model 30 had a floppy connector that provided its own power; there was no separate connector and the floppy that came with the system would not operate in a "standard" system that did not supply this power through the ribbon cable.

Also, many keyboard interfaces are flaky, cheaply made, or contain proprietary enhancements that make them difficult to support properly. The "multimedia" keyboard I'm typing on right now uses the same PnP ID as a standard 101-key but requires a special driver before it will operate properly at all, even its normal keys will malfunction without it.

Without knowing what type of chipsets or BIOS your motherboard uses, we can't adequately diagnose your problem in a public forum. IF you're worried about violating an NDA then you shouldn't even bother asking the general public to help you; ask someone else in the company, or if it's that important, hire a contractor to repair it.

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

to address the question of the keyboard, it is a standard keyboard without anything special about it. think about the keyboards you would see if you went to a computer show. It's a normal bloody keyboard...

most pc's are pretty standard...the technology is essentially the same in almost every pc over the last few years.

I do not understand why you are being overly hostile, and I apologize if this has wasted your time. I assure you that you need waste no more of your time on it, thank you.

[oddball42.livejournal.com]

he is just looking for new things to try and troubleshoot things he might have missed... not a bad idea of hitting a large portions of geeks in one shot like this... actually im thinking of doing the same myself.

he isnt asking us to fix it, just some ideas in troubleshooting. ease up.

[wildkard.livejournal.com]

What's the mobo brand and model#?... something this quirky might have also been dealt with by other people. A google search might be productive?

[kyndig.livejournal.com]

to get the model # I will have to be back at work (monday.) I will say though that I did a google search and didn't come up with anything, also since I work for the manufacturer of the pc we have a pretty good database of even weird things that have come up.