*wibble*
Okay, so victim #1 is a Dell Inspiron 2650 running XP SP2. It started hanging upon trying to start XP. Starting XP in safe mode w/command prompt showed that it was hanging on agp440.sys. After a couple such hangs, the laptop will power up, but no video and it won't boot off any drive at all. I'm hoping it's just the video card... problem is, I don't have a known good that I can use to swap out for test. Thoughts?
Victim #2 is an IBM ThinkPad 600E running 98SE. I power it up and get errors #173 and 163, then a screen to enter the date and time. According to the troubleshooting instructions in the manual, it says to do just that and hit enter, and the computer will restart. This I do, and I get the ThinkPad splash screen, then an error box with "OFF > ON". Again, according to the manual, it says that this happens when IDE is switched from channel 2 to 3, and that I should power the computer down for at least 5 seconds and restart. I do this, and I get errors #173 and 163 again, and the cycle starts all over. My first thought is a dead CMOS battery.
It may be worth mentioning that I don't know how old the battery pack is, and that it doesn't hold much more than a 5-10 minute charge...
I'm afraid all I can offer in recompense is my gratitude (and perhaps some assistance of my own at some point), but know that said gratitude shall be eternal. :) |
