Jelly
September 2nd, 2008, 04:34 PM
So, I got a new case today, and spent all day moving all my hardware from one case to another, clearing dust in the process using a vaccum cleaner - possible mistake.
When I'd finally finished and booted up the computer, the screen was covered in lines and blocks of white, though it responded to keyboard commands and went to attempting to launch Grub - the bootloader. When it tried to launch it, though, the relevant hard drive wasn't detected and it rebooted itself, presenting me with another corrupt boot screen.
Disconnecting the power supply from one of my hard drives seemed to do the trick for the corrupt boot screen. For one boot. When I rebooted next, trying to fix the hard drive detection, the corrupt screen returned and I was back to square one.
I've fiddled about with cables and checked connections, as well as checking that both of my boot hard drives actually work - they do. This leaves me at the conclusion that it is a hardware failure that happened during the move. I'm not sure what has failed, though. It may be the motherboard, since there are two seemingly unrelated problems, or it may be that both the Graphics card and IDE cable that connects the two boot drives has failed.
Frustrating, since I'm not especially willing to spend more money on testing the card and cables.
Some background info/specs:
Two Maxtor 40GB IDE hard drives - had these since I first built the computer. One has Linux on, one has Windows. Both are connected by the same IDE cable. Both worked before the move.
One Samsung Spinpoint SATA 500GB hard drive - Being detected fine, used for data storage. Worked before the move.
One Samsung Spinpoint F1 SATA 1TB hard drive - Only got it today; nothing on it, but it was the hard drive I first disconnected from the PSU.
ATI X1800XL PCI-Express graphics card, 256MB - Worked before the move.
ECS NFORCE4M-A Motherboard - Never heard of the brand before, but it worked before the move.
1GB Patriot RAM - Worked before the move, not really related to the problem as far as I can see.
AMD 5200+ Processor - Worked before the move. Was not removed from its slot during the move, and was not touched.
Old CD writer.
Corsair HX520 PSU - Worked before the move. Certainly works after the move, but can it take the specs above?
When I'd finally finished and booted up the computer, the screen was covered in lines and blocks of white, though it responded to keyboard commands and went to attempting to launch Grub - the bootloader. When it tried to launch it, though, the relevant hard drive wasn't detected and it rebooted itself, presenting me with another corrupt boot screen.
Disconnecting the power supply from one of my hard drives seemed to do the trick for the corrupt boot screen. For one boot. When I rebooted next, trying to fix the hard drive detection, the corrupt screen returned and I was back to square one.
I've fiddled about with cables and checked connections, as well as checking that both of my boot hard drives actually work - they do. This leaves me at the conclusion that it is a hardware failure that happened during the move. I'm not sure what has failed, though. It may be the motherboard, since there are two seemingly unrelated problems, or it may be that both the Graphics card and IDE cable that connects the two boot drives has failed.
Frustrating, since I'm not especially willing to spend more money on testing the card and cables.
Some background info/specs:
Two Maxtor 40GB IDE hard drives - had these since I first built the computer. One has Linux on, one has Windows. Both are connected by the same IDE cable. Both worked before the move.
One Samsung Spinpoint SATA 500GB hard drive - Being detected fine, used for data storage. Worked before the move.
One Samsung Spinpoint F1 SATA 1TB hard drive - Only got it today; nothing on it, but it was the hard drive I first disconnected from the PSU.
ATI X1800XL PCI-Express graphics card, 256MB - Worked before the move.
ECS NFORCE4M-A Motherboard - Never heard of the brand before, but it worked before the move.
1GB Patriot RAM - Worked before the move, not really related to the problem as far as I can see.
AMD 5200+ Processor - Worked before the move. Was not removed from its slot during the move, and was not touched.
Old CD writer.
Corsair HX520 PSU - Worked before the move. Certainly works after the move, but can it take the specs above?