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8790 Power LED Goes On But BIOS Won't Boot

post #1 of 8
3/28/06 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I got my 8790 end of August '04 and the problems started first, intermittently in October '05, repaired twice by Sager, in December '05 and February '06, but now is exhibiting the same problems again1) When you power-up the system, the blue power LED lights come on but the BIOS won't boot and nothing else boots (but the fan turns on after 1-2 minutes) or (2) The system boots to Windows XP, but after less than 5 minutes, the screen goes black, the system seems to be without power (unresponsive), but the blue LED power-on lights are on, fan is on.

The first time I returned it to Sager, they said it was just because of a dirty fan. They cleaned it and returned it to me, but when I booted it up, the same problems occurred. I returned the computer to them the next day after receiving it, and they replaced the motherboard with a refurbished one ($400, ouch). I already told them that I suspected it was not the motherboard, but being an expensive unit, I paid for it anyway. After working for 3 weeks, it now has the same problem: the blue power LED lights come on but the system (from the BIOS on up) won't boot. In the past three weeks, I even augmented the cooling with an external fan. I have also sat and resat the memory, powered on with and without the battery, and so on to no avail.

I received my 3rd RMA number today, and since I live in DC, it has been quite inconvenient shipping this unit back and forth to CA since December (plus the loss of productivity associated with not having this machine -- I build artificial intelligence models in it). Does anyone have the same experience and were you able to fix it yourself? I saw this old Toshiba problem and wonder whether or not it is related:
http://www.electronics.dit.ie/staff/...ix/index.shtml

Thanks for any insights before I send the unit back for the third time.
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post #2 of 8
5/6/06 at 7:08pm
Exact same problem started on my machine this morning. Cool office, machine off all night means it could not be a temp problem. I restarted 10+ times and it finally loaded the bios. During the unsuccessful attempts, I sometimes had control of the fans with FN+F10 and sometimes had control of the Wireless with FN+F11, but they were both intermittened. In all cases the fans powered themselves on like you describe. I have not turned my machine off since it finally loaded. Have been doing backups all day and waiting for someone to respond to my post. If you get any info let me know and i will do the same.
Thanks
Eddie
nmbeach69@yahoo.com
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post #3 of 8
5/18/07 at 5:58pm
werid question, when this happened to you guys, did it beep every 15sec, i have reseated everything and cleared the bios and mine still refuses to post.
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post #4 of 8
8/27/07 at 1:30pm
Has anyone found the asnwer to this? I had the same thing. Also sent it back to Sager CA. $400 new motherboard. Same deal now. Won't start...
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post #5 of 8
8/28/07 at 1:05pm
When this happened to me I was advised to check for bad ram. I tried removing 1 stick & attempting to booted, no luck. When I reinstalled that stick & removed the other however it boot fine! I've been running with the 1 stick since.
Hope this helps.
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post #6 of 8
8/31/07 at 8:48pm
I have the same problem and i did remove one of the ram and try running the computer with one but still did not work. I do not want to pay $400 plus for a new motherboard. If any one else know why this happens tell me. Also could it be that i have not updated the bios at all since i got it?
DAMN IT!
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post #7 of 8
9/4/07 at 12:57pm
Here is the reply I got when I had this problem. Note that the first piece of advise was to remove, wait & re-install the CMOS battery. I didn't have to do this on my machine. I lucked out & had a bad stick of ram. Once I figured out which one I was good to go. Read the following...

"Hi there, I had a similar problem before, and was able to solve it by opening the bottom of the case, the memory section I believe, and removing the CMOS battery, it looks like a small watch battery. Wait 10 seconds or so, then put it back in - this should reset the CMOS. If this happened in a desktop, I would just use the CMOS reset jumper on the motherboard, but I wasn't able to find one on the mobo of the 8790, but taking out the battery and replacing it seems to do the same.

CAUTION - there's a slim chance this could cause damage, but it fixed my problem and I've seen no side effects.

PS. Is it giving you a short beep tone after you press the power button? If so, it might be something else - the memory might have gone bad, if its this case, remove one of the memory sticks, then turn the system on, if that doesn't work, replace the stick you removed, take out the other one, and turn it on. If the system works after you remove one of them, you know that stick went bad. I also had this happen to me.. *SIGH* the 8790 had so many problems...

Good luck!"

I think the CMOS battery is under the HDD's not the memory for what its worth.
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post #8 of 8
5/16/08 at 9:14pm
Hi guys,

My gf's 8790 which she has given the nickname "Janine", had this same problem: Boots until the split second before the XP boot screen then shuts off emitting a weird buzzing sound from the keyboard. Repeated attempts to turn it back on failed and all the LEDs stayed off. The LEDS stayed off unless unplugged for awhile. This got me thinking while I was messing around trying to fix it when I noticed the LED would come back when I disconnected and reconnected the battery. I could then recreate the problem all day. This lead me to believe it was a battery issue....

My suspicions were confirmed when I visited the Sager warehouse earlier today and had them bring out a (new?) battery for me. A nice fellow brought out one of those 12 cell batteries, and I asked to test it out first, and he agreed to let me. I flipped the beast over and inserted the huge battery (had to remove my TV card which I never use anyway), flipped it back over, plugged in the AC adapter and pressed the power button while holding my breath.

AND IT BOOTED RIGHT UP!!!

Needless to say my gf was ecstatic and I believe I will get some soon ~~

So to add to all the possible fixes above, you might want to get a new battery. Sager has only the 12cell left and their price is $185.00 + tax. If you want to save money, you could use batteryrefill.com, however, I called them up before I made the trip to Sager and they told me they won't get new cells for the Sager until memorial day at least.

Janine: Here's to another few years of servitude!
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