[MHammer]

Problem with friend's computer. He says everything was normal when he turned it off on Wednesday night. When he tried to turn it on yesterday, it posts but then presents black screen saying "Searching for Boot Record from IDE-0..not found" and "Searching for Boot Record from Floppy..OK", and a blinking cursor. It won't boot from hdd, it won't boot from a floppy and it won't boot from a bootable cd. Been in BIOS, everything appears to be set correctly, hdd is recognized. But no matter what boot order is entered, it won't get past the black screen. Ribbon cables have been reseated as well as completely changed except for floppy - no difference. Hdd replaced with new - no change. Fan is running. CDROM's light up for a second on startup but not floppy drive. System is about 3 years old, AMD Duron 850, MB 810XP K7/ATA100. Has MB failed somewhere? Any suggestions appreciated.

Mikele Hammer

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Do you get any "beep codes" on the system speaker during the boot up process? Here is a test you can do that will confirm the motherboard has failed: One method that can help identify a mother board problem is by removing all RAM and forcing a RAM failure. When your system goes through POST, it will look for both RAM and a Video Card. Removing one of these components will force a failure and give error beeps. If you do not get beeps, make sure your case speaker is connected or that your board has an onboard speaker. If you still do not hear beeps, then it is possible that your motherboard is bad.

[austin_o]

Do you get any "beep codes" on the system speaker during the boot up process? Here is a test you can do that will confirm the motherboard has failed: One method that can help identify a mother board problem is by removing all RAM and forcing a RAM failure. When your system goes through POST, it will look for both RAM and a Video Card. Removing one of these components will force a failure and give error beeps. If you do not get beeps, make sure your case speaker is connected or that your board has an onboard speaker. If you still do not hear beeps, then it is possible that your motherboard is bad.

[MHammer]

Thanks for info. My friend took dead computer home but I'll ask him to bring it back - I honestly can't remember whether it beeped or not.

[MHammer]

Removed RAM, powered computer on, no beep. There's a system speaker with one red and one black wire going to motherboard. Guess it's toast. Thanks all for your guidance.