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Dual Boot PC will not Boot Up

1. Running desktop with AMD Athelon Dual Core XP5000 - 2.6 Ghz, 4 Gb RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4770
graphics. Two Samsung HDD's (80Gb original - 4 yo + 500 Gb - 6 mths old).

2. 500 Gb HDD Primary, NTFS running XP Pro SP3. Running fine until Saturday 07 August.

3. On Sat 14 Aug, installed Ubuntu 10.4 on Secondary HDD (IDE), from ISO DVD.

4. Booted and ran perfectly in Ubuntu, but could not boot XP. Somehow Grub the Linux MBR took over from Win.
Linux Forum gave work around to D/load newer Grub MBR. Only problem with Ubuntu, it would not recognise
my Huawei E160 USB wireless modem - common prob on Linux Forum.

5. Bad decision on my part - advised to d/load and install a package called NDISwrapper to Linux, with some
degree of complexity and Linux knowledge. Followed instructions to the letter but did not work. Ubuntu still
running fine for a few minutes. Shortly after I looked up to find the PC had shutdown.

6. Tried tried to reboot - NOTHING ! Power supply, light and fans running, DVD light flashing but would not load
Ubuntu. Monitor says only "No Signal Detected."

7. Took covers off, checked power to Mboard, HDD's, etc. Dis- connected power leads and reconnected - all tight
and seem ok.

8. Tried Ubuntu Live Disk (10.4, 9.10) plus Win XP Install and Rescue Disks.

9. Wondered if CMOS battery failed - CR 2032, cannot remember if it has been replaced in 4 years. 3 volt Batt -
registers 2.5 volts with Multimeter. Replaced Batt - 3.2 v rebooted but same story - no go.

10. Put Ubuntu install on USB, and tried rebbot - still no go ! Also tried a Linux Rescue Disk (self-booting, but no
joy there either. Only thing I haven't tried yet is a DOS bootup disk. Can it be installed on a CD ? Not that I
expect it to render any different results.

11, Power Supply Voltages (static & on startup) with Multimeter - 12.02 / 5.07 / 3.2 v which seem good.

12. One point that may, or may not be important - Last successful start I noticed the bootup screen telling me my
4Gb DDR2 800 DUAL channel RAM was only SINGLE Channel ??? At the time, I thought that odd, because it
normally reads DUAL Channel each time.

13. Went over Mboard carefully, could see nothing loose and no leaky or bulging capacitors. Tried booting PC
several times, alternately disconnecting CD/DVD, C:, D: drives and combos thereof - problem same. Also
tried orginal Compaq XP Pro Insatll CD and own Recovery CD. Still no joy.

14. One last point, just remembered, for last 2-3 weeks of working, there were 2 or 3 funny incidents - on starting
Windows, then Ubuntu, my Screen went fuzzy - you could see and read everything, but it was like super-low
resolution - fuzzy, not enough pixels on display and colours were faded. On reboot it corrected Hence my
careful look at caps on Mboard. Graphics is 6 month old ATI Radeon HD4770.

15. Mboard is Gigabyte whatever, came with new Compaq PC not quite 4 years ago. Now resides in Antec case
with Antec 380 watt True Blue PSU.

At this point I think it may be either PSU, Mboard or RAM, but don't know how to check further. I am a leftover from the Age of Steam (ships). LOL

Thanks for reading this post - Can anyone point me right direction please?

Flez
Job Role: HR / Personnel / Training
Location: North Haven, New South Wales, Australia

I would suspect the PSU first... can you try a different one?

Thank you for replying.

Unfortunately I do not have a spare PSU. Using my Notebook to use the Web. Next project was to network it to PC. My only options are to take it one of 3 local IT shops, who I am unsure of, having only recently moved here. Only a small coastal community. Cannot even get ADSL locally.

My No. 1 guess was PSU, but one can spend $$$ replacing the PSU, only to find out it is the Mboard or RAM.

Thanks again for your reply, much appreciated.

FOUND PROBLEM - 6 mth old Radeon HD 4770 Video Card [*]

After testing each HDD, CD/DVD drive and RAM, it was looking like PSU for sure. Went & had dinner and the penny dropped. Test the ATI Radeon HD 4770 card. Removed it & rebooted using Ubuntu 9.10 boot disk and Hey Presto - the PC defaulted to nVidia onboard Video.

So, it was the wretched Video Card, and it's barely 6 mths old. Examined card and capacitors, could find nothing obvious, so will contact ATI to see what they say.

Thanks so much for your help, good Forum.

Could still be the PSU. If the PSU is right on the verge of failing, the extra load from the video card could be pushing it over the edge.

Oh Oh ! Just when I thought my dramas were over!

Thanks for info mate, never would have thought of that - how can I tell for sure, then ? I don't have access to a spare.

And you never really know until it's under load, eh?

Can you try the graphics card in a friend's system (as long as they have a big enough PSU to drive it) and see if it causes problems there ?