[GTALUG] Unbootability

[Russell Reiter]

Percussive maintenance that's the ticket. Works for me. Really, I've
done things to computers that would make an electronics engineer shake
his head and wonder what it was I thought I was doing. Yet somehow I
revived the dead/dormant device.

One other thing to check in order to avoid going down a blind alley
is, look for End Of Life characteristics on the MB components.
Yellowing on the surface of the backplane and carbonization around
components can be fairly good EOL indicators and depending on your
need to revive the device, you can decide how much time to spend on it
and whether any MB part replacement will solve the problem.

Often you replace a faulty part and this causes a cascade failure of
other worn parts. Thermodynamics and electronic entropy are considered
irreversible in isolated systems but a little knowledge of the MB
layout, you can make a best guess as to which parts are worn and
increasing the thermal load.

How does percussive maintenance fit in. When I worked in the field, in
construction, every engineer had a little hammer to tap stuff with.
Sometimes to loosen a bolt, sometimes just to hear the thing ring.

It's a time honoured tradition to bash the stuff that gives us problems.


Cheers
Russell

On 10/21/14, Mauro Souza <thoriumbr at gmail.com> wrote:
> I always have this problem on my 10 years old Athlon XP... when it refused
> to boot, I had this ritual: open the case, remove some cards, put back,
> loosen and tighten some screws, and  put all back. It usually worked.
>
> When it didn't, I opened the case, grabbed it by one side, dragged it (not
> gently, it's the key) around, and put it back. And it works.
>
> Mauro
> http://mauro.limeiratem.com - registered Linux User: 294521
> Scripture is both history, and a love letter from God.
>
> 2014-10-21 20:17 GMT-02:00 John Moniz <john.moniz at sympatico.ca>:
>
>> On 10/21/2014 10:49 AM, Peter King wrote:
>>
>>> I'm trying to revive an old computer.
>>>
>>> The CPU is an Athlon XP 2500, on an Asus A7X87 motherboard, with 3GB
>>> of RAM.  The internal connections are all PATA.  It has both USB ports
>>> and a DVDRW drive installed.  Up until a month or so ago, it ran as
>>> well as an old computer could, with Gentoo installed.  Then a hard disc
>>> went bad, and that's when the fun began.
>>>
>>> The BIOS, which dates from 2004, wouldn't let me boot from a USB stick
>>> (the only options are USB-FDD and USB-ZIP).  So I started burning boot
>>> CDs, all of which fail: Gentoo current install disc; SysRescue CD; the
>>> Debian 7.0 live install disc; Archliinx; and OpenBSD.  As I said, they
>>> all fail, quite early on in the process: the BIOS tells me "ATAPI CDROM:
>>> No Emulation" and then starts loading each disc, but fails one way or
>>> another, never getting through a kernel load as far as I can tell (which
>>> isn't very far).  I have swapped the DVDRW drive out for another one,
>>> with no change in results; I have changed the PATA cable connected to
>>> the DVDRW twice, also with no change in results.  MemTest seems quite
>>> happy with the installed RAM.
>>>
>>> The boot failures are inconsistent, but, for what it's worth, here is
>>> how they each fail:
>>>
>>> (1) Gentoo install disc: Gets as far as starting to load the kernel when
>>>      the screen goes black.  Sometimes that triggers a BIOS reboot, but
>>> at
>>>      other times it just sits there.  Tried several combinations of
>>> kernel
>>>      modules: nofb, noacpi, no-hardware-detection, and so on, without
>>> any
>>>      making a difference.
>>>
>>> (2) Sysrecue CD: Latest version simply segfaults after the "ISOLinux"
>>>      declaration.
>>>
>>> (3) Debian 7.0 live install disc: Gets to the menu of choices, and will
>>>      usually allow me to make a choice; picking "Install" in any form
>>>      causes a black screen followed by a reboot.  Under the "Advanced"
>>>      menu I can run MemTest, though.
>>>
>>> (4) Archlinux install disc: Once I got to the menu, with the motherboard
>>>      wildly beeping in the background, but wasn't able to select any of
>>>      the choices.  Every other time it just triggers a reboot.
>>>
>>> (5) OpenBSD 5.6 install disc: Starts loading the kernel but freezes
>>> after
>>>      printing the UC copyright notice.
>>>
>>> Google turns up lots of suggestions for the "no emulation" message,
>>> most of which are either "switch the cable" or "change the drive", both
>>> of which I've tried, as noted.
>>>
>>> The next thing I'll try is to remove one hard disc, install it in some
>>> other functional computer, and install a bootable Gentoo (or whatever)
>>> on it there, then reinstalling the disc on the old computer to see if
>>> it will boot from it.  I'm happy (enough) to do that, but I'm bothered
>>> by the brick wall I've hit in trying to do something ordinary, namely
>>> to boot from a CDR.  Any ideas?
>>>
>>>  If you think the MB might be the problem, one thing I would try is to
>> remove the MB from the case, place it on a non-conductive material,
>> reconnect all cables and try again.
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> GTALUG Talk Mailing List - talk at gtalug.org
>> http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>>
>