d8b Forum

Getting a d8b system gifted to me this week that the owner says he thinks the motherboard might be fried on the PC side. Any suggestions on what to do first for troubleshooting?

I would open up the cpu-unit for a visual inspection, to see if I could identify any issues there.
Then I would probably try to hook a regular pc ATX power supply to the motherboard (instead of the original AT supply in there), hook up a keyboard and monitor, and see if I could get just the PC part to boot up (by shorting the atx-pins on the motherboard).
Just take it one step at a time, trying to verify the working of the seperate parts of the whole system one at a time.

arjepsen wrote:I would open up the cpu-unit for a visual inspection, to see if I could identify any issues there.
Then I would probably try to hook a regular pc ATX power supply to the motherboard (instead of the original AT supply in there), hook up a keyboard and monitor, and see if I could get just the PC part to boot up (by shorting the atx-pins on the motherboard).
Just take it one step at a time, trying to verify the working of the seperate parts of the whole system one at a time.

Yeap... troubleshoot the CPU just like a 'normal' pc because... well, it is... an older Pentium 4 (Celeron) based architecture... arjepsen is Spot-On. Just by using a controlled (ie slow), pragmatic approach and this forum, you'll at minimum know what, if anything, is wrong with your D8B. Something I'd personally be aware of is that often Intel-based motherboards (x86) will have a tendency for the onboard disk controller(s) to go tits up with age... that'll manifest in the CPU continually cycling thru the POST (Power-On Self Test) routine, never getting to the operating system actually loading up... pretty extreme, but just be advised...

Whatever (if anything) that potentially may be an issue or problem, post it here... this community has a plethora of intelligent people contributing and a very high success rate of working these things out... and there's also a forum database curated to reference a great deal of the technical information here as well...

As always, here it is:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

Also check backup battery and BIOS settings on the PC. If the unit was laying around for a while not being used, you might have lost CMOS and BOIS settings.

Thanks for all of the advice on this. I'll check everything suggested. It's going to be a challenge, just to see what this desk can do and if I can get it up and running again. Will keep everyone posted.

a lot of smart people here so take your time and post any issues. Also, suggest you review thoroughly the http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/index.html as well. Good luck

Thanks captainamerica and everybody. Going to pick it up tomorrow. Supposed to have brand new hard drives, all of the paperwork, and a bunch of goodies with it.

spynmaker wrote:Thanks captainamerica and everybody. Going to pick it up tomorrow. Supposed to have brand new hard drives, all of the paperwork, and a bunch of goodies with it.

LOL.. some advice, you'll most likely be upgrading the hard disk pretty quickly to a compact flash card... especially to eliminate a whole other set of issues / problems... not a big deal whatsoever, tho...

Of course, yadda yadda yadda...
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

yep as dok suggests, upgrade to a compact flash card when you can.

Hey guys! Just got it. The Beast!!

Ok here's my first problem. Just going to share pics and see what you guys think. The computer will POST then this message " Cache Memory Error. Press F1 to run Setup. ( there's a picture in here of the BIOS too )
I also plan on converting over to the compact flash card at some point. I've already got a reader and a card somewhere lol.
Any info will be appreciated!!!