Weird Problem....
Dec. 27th, 2002 01:43 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kyndig.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecoveryI 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.)
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.)
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Date: 2002-12-28 07:57 am (UTC)he isnt asking us to fix it, just some ideas in troubleshooting. ease up.