[OT] Machine won't boot

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Monday 18 August 2008 13:24, Alan Cox wrote:
> > What could fail and induce such behavior? I have never seen anything
> > similar before. A computer usually does boot completely or does not boot
> > at all. I've never seen it boot halfway and then lock up.
>
> Age, component failure , corrosion, static damage finally killing a
> device, fan failure ...
>
> If its bust take it apart, completely. Earth yourself and then clean all
> the ram contacts, PCI and ISA card slots, tap all the chips firmly on the
> top and make sure they feel ok, check then fans seem ok.
>
> Put it back together with the smallest amount of valid RAM configuration
> and no hard disks or PCI cards beyond the minimum and see if that passes
> memtest86. If it doesn't you can try reseating the CPU and the like but
> its probably game over.
>
> If it boots like that add bits back until either its all back or it stops
> booting 8)

Thanks for the suggestions, I was also thinking of doing that. I took a spare 
dvd reader, hd, graphics card, power supply and some old sdram from the 
office, so I'll be able to remove all components but the motherboard and cpu. 
That should help localize the problem to one component, hopefully. :-)

:-)
Marko