Socket 462 system not booting..

[ajf]

I have a colleagues (again!) PC. It is an Athlon XP 2400+ Socket 462 based system.
Initially it would not power on at all and after various tests I realised a number of capacitors on the board had blown - they were not visible initially.
I have got a new board for him - an MSI KM2M Combo.

Plugged CPU, memory and hard disk in. Seems to be all auto detect so no jumpers to set that I can see.
Now it WILL power up OK and goes through the POST fine but when it starts to load windows the HDD (with XP on) sounds as if it is about to start booting but I just get a flashing cursor and no more.

I have tried another HDD with XP installed and this starts to boot but then stops and the PC reboots.

I have changed memory with no luck.
I do not have another cpu to try.

Any ideas? Could the cpu be dead?

Also the baord has a 20 pin and the extra 4 pin connector. Do they both NEED to be active or will the 20pin suffice if that is all the power supply has?

Thanks
Andrew

 

[steve258]

Yes the extra 4 pins will need to be plugged in as well.

Did you re-install Windows XP after you changed the mobo?? If you haven't you need to otherwise it will recognise it as a different system and refuse to boot.

 

[ajf]

Thanks.
All seems to be working now - kind of anyhow!

His original power supply and motherboard only had 20 pin connectors so I have had to whip a psu out of a spare PC of mine that has the additional 4 pin connector also.

Also hadn't realised XP will not boot when using an existing install on a new system . I had assumed it would boot then sort itself out.
I have run a fresh install on a temporary HDD and it all seems to run OK now.

SO...
Can anyone point me to a new case and psu that has a 20 pin connector AND 4 pin connector rather than the common single 24pin connector?

Thanks
Andrew

 

[ajf]

Just a quick update.
May be getting confused as to what I need with the power supply.
I thought I needed a 20pin plus 4 pin atx connector but looking around I think I need a 20pin atx2.03 connector and the 4 pin is actually a 12v atx connector which seems to be something different.

Seems some power supplies have a 20/24 pin ATX 2.03 connector AND the 12v atx 4pin which was confusing me.

If it helps this links to a photo of the board:
MSI board

Thanks
Andrew

 

[V|per]

a scandisk with the fixmbr switch would have probably fixed the flashing cursor issue... i find it fixes a lot of issues like that when swapping previousely installed windows hdd's over... happens a lot when using sysprep and duping hdd's too, something to not for the future

 

[steve258]

All recent motherboards have 24+4pins or even 24+8pins socket:

Socket A - 20pins / 20+4pins
Socket 754 - 20+4pins
Socket 939 - 24+4pins
Socket AM2 - 24+4 / 24+8pins

Socket 478 - 20+4pins
LGA775 - 24+4 / 24+8pins

If you buy a new power supply today you will likely have 24+4 or 24+8 plugs, which is also compatible with 20+4 on Socket A motherboards; the extra 4 pins on big atx connector is usually detachable or if not, you wll get a 24pins - 20pins converter with your new PSU.

 

[ajf]

Thanks all for the replies.
Got a suitable power supply in the end. As I said earlier realised I needed a 20pin motherboard connector and a 12v atx plug so all sorted.
reason for flashing cursor seems to be failed/failing hard disk though.

I reformatted etc OK but each time the machine was shut down it would fail to boot and the partition would have dissapeared!
New hard disk installed too now. Not quite the 'cheap' repair he had hoped but the machine is set up now.


Andrew