BIOS Looping until floppy detected

lotuseclat79 · 02-18-2005, 12:54 PM

My PC has an Award BIOS v6.00PG [ROM In socket, size 256KB]. VIA motherboard model 694X-686B, SuperI/O VIA 686 rev64 with chipset VIA 82C605 rev 196. Pentium III, 1GHz, 512MB RAM w/40GB harddisk. Device boot order: floppy, CDROM, HDD-0 (currently). Running Win98SE. [I have a Linux Grub MBR on disk #1 with Win98SE as default, and Linux RH partitions on disk #2 which needs manual selection at boot time to boot up]. Both disks are 40GB.

The symptom is that when booting up from DPMS Power Off Mode state: During POST, the BIOS LOOPS BACK to the DPMS Power Off Mode state from the point in the boot process where the message "Verifying DMI Data Pool ..." appears, ... UNTIL the floppy drive is detected [i.e. light comes on], and then the bootup process continues as normal.

Usually, after 3-4 loops, I get into the BIOS to look at the health status temperatures, and just exit without saving. Mostly, the PC boots up within a tolerable time, i.e. yes, the floppy drive is detected and the device does work as I have, since this problem first appeared, formatted several floppies after a complete boot up.

I have procured a new flash BIOS from esupport.com, but I would like to find out what troubleshooting advice this forum can provide and try to understand what might be causing this problem before attempting to flash the BIOS - I am not even sure that would cure the problem, as well as create new ones. I have seen writeups on the Web in other forums that deal with bootup processes that STOP at "Verifying DMI Data Pool ...", but that is not the same as this issue as far as I can tell because the BIOS is not halting.

If anyone knows what's going on and can explain what to do to correct this problem - please let me know.

Otherwise, what can I do to troubleshoot and diagnose this problem? Can you suggest a procedure to follow that would gather some data to shed some light on solving this problem?

Tia,

-- Tom

lotuseclat79 · 02-27-2005, 02:49 PM

I decided to follow a basic floppy disk drive troubleshooting procedure I found on the Internet. It stated that the causes for a floppy drive not working may be due to one or more of the following reasons:

1. Bad floppy diskette.
2. Not setup in CMOS.
3. Confliction with other hardware.
4. Not connected properly.
5. Bad drivers.
6. Bad hardware.

One item I later discovered in my writeup was that on application of initial power, the floppy LED did not light up, but the CDROM light did.

Since the floppy drive worked when it was possible to boot the PC up, I knew that the FDD controller and floppy drive were setup properly in the CMOS, and therefore I could eliminate reasons 1-3,5 above. That indicated that I should first check out the connections.

After powering down, and uncabling the chassis, I unbuttoned it, and did not touch the connection on the motherboard - I decided to leave this if disconnecting and reconnecting the cabling on the floppy drive unit itself at the other end of the cable did not work, and if that didn't work to replace the data cable entirely (on a 3rd try) since I did not replace it when I installed a replacement floppy drive last year before my two disks were ghosted as replacements, and I have a spare new one.

After blowing out the dust from inside the cabinet and reseating the connections to the floppy drive itself, the system came up on the very first bootup (HoHah!) without the annoying looping problem.

The procedure for (Not connectd properly) was as follows:
1) Open computer being aware of ESD and its potential dangers - I have an anti-static mat with a wrist anti-static grounding strap.
2) Verify that the floppy connection is connected to the motherboard FDD connector. If it appears to be connected, disconnect and reconnect the cable to verify the cable is seated properly.
3) Verify that the floppy cable coming from the motherboard is connected to the back of the floppy drive - this is what I disconnected/reconnected
4) Verify that a power connection is also connected to the back of the floppy drive - I reseated this also.
5) If the floppy cable has more than one connection verify that you are connecting the floppy to the appropriate connection.

Given that following the above procedure does not work, there may be bad hardware for which the procedure is:

For Bad Hardware:
If you continue to experience issues after following the above steps, it is likely that hardware within the computer is bad. Attempt to replace the following hardware in the computer in the order below:
1) Replace the floppy data cable which connects the computer floppy drive to the motherboard\I/O board - this is what I would have attempted on my 3rd try mentioned above.
2) Replace the floppy if the floppy data cable did not resolve the problem.
3) Replace or requet that the motherboard\I/O board be replaced.

-- Tom

lotuseclat79 · 03-02-2005, 01:10 PM

This is the Epilogue or what finally happened re: this problem:
"...when the boot process has hiccups, there is a hardware problem".

After the previously mentioned reseating of the data cable failed to provide a sustainable solution, i.e. the problem persisted, and a quick trip to the local PC vendor discovered that two caps (capacitors) on the motherboard had popped. The caps that are ok are flat on the top whereas the two that popped are not flat but raised in the middle of the cap that has an X or + scribed on its surface (what to look for when you inspect the motherboard).

To round out the symptoms of this problem when the default Win98SE system was able to boot up eventually that I suspect were related to the popped caps:
random system crashes via various actions like
1) mouse clicks,
2) screen freeze ups
3) mouse lock ups
4) Ctrl-Alt-Del lockups
5) rapid scroll-bar movement

Another symptom regarding my system configuration is that since my 2nd disk is a Linux RH, the hardware browser got stuck and hung Linux on dealing with the floppy disk drive (the led stayed on), and all of the lockups mentioned above occurred.

-- Tom

P.S. Motherboard is obsolete VIA chipsets no longer made, as is the SDRAM and Pentium III processor, so I'm probably looking at purchasing a whole new system. I may be able to scavenge my DVD-RAM, CDROM, floppy drive, HDDs, soundblaster card, and video card, but will probably need a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply and full tower.

02-18-2005, 12:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
lotuseclat79 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5 OS: Win98SE	BIOS Looping until floppy detected My PC has an Award BIOS v6.00PG [ROM In socket, size 256KB]. VIA motherboard model 694X-686B, SuperI/O VIA 686 rev64 with chipset VIA 82C605 rev 196. Pentium III, 1GHz, 512MB RAM w/40GB harddisk. Device boot order: floppy, CDROM, HDD-0 (currently). Running Win98SE. [I have a Linux Grub MBR on disk #1 with Win98SE as default, and Linux RH partitions on disk #2 which needs manual selection at boot time to boot up]. Both disks are 40GB. The symptom is that when booting up from DPMS Power Off Mode state: During POST, the BIOS LOOPS BACK to the DPMS Power Off Mode state from the point in the boot process where the message "Verifying DMI Data Pool ..." appears, ... UNTIL the floppy drive is detected [i.e. light comes on], and then the bootup process continues as normal. Usually, after 3-4 loops, I get into the BIOS to look at the health status temperatures, and just exit without saving. Mostly, the PC boots up within a tolerable time, i.e. yes, the floppy drive is detected and the device does work as I have, since this problem first appeared, formatted several floppies after a complete boot up. I have procured a new flash BIOS from esupport.com, but I would like to find out what troubleshooting advice this forum can provide and try to understand what might be causing this problem before attempting to flash the BIOS - I am not even sure that would cure the problem, as well as create new ones. I have seen writeups on the Web in other forums that deal with bootup processes that STOP at "Verifying DMI Data Pool ...", but that is not the same as this issue as far as I can tell because the BIOS is not halting. If anyone knows what's going on and can explain what to do to correct this problem - please let me know. Otherwise, what can I do to troubleshoot and diagnose this problem? Can you suggest a procedure to follow that would gather some data to shed some light on solving this problem? Tia, -- Tom

02-27-2005, 02:49 PM	#2 (permalink)
lotuseclat79 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5 OS: Win98SE	I decided to follow a basic floppy disk drive troubleshooting procedure I found on the Internet. It stated that the causes for a floppy drive not working may be due to one or more of the following reasons: 1. Bad floppy diskette. 2. Not setup in CMOS. 3. Confliction with other hardware. 4. Not connected properly. 5. Bad drivers. 6. Bad hardware. One item I later discovered in my writeup was that on application of initial power, the floppy LED did not light up, but the CDROM light did. Since the floppy drive worked when it was possible to boot the PC up, I knew that the FDD controller and floppy drive were setup properly in the CMOS, and therefore I could eliminate reasons 1-3,5 above. That indicated that I should first check out the connections. After powering down, and uncabling the chassis, I unbuttoned it, and did not touch the connection on the motherboard - I decided to leave this if disconnecting and reconnecting the cabling on the floppy drive unit itself at the other end of the cable did not work, and if that didn't work to replace the data cable entirely (on a 3rd try) since I did not replace it when I installed a replacement floppy drive last year before my two disks were ghosted as replacements, and I have a spare new one. After blowing out the dust from inside the cabinet and reseating the connections to the floppy drive itself, the system came up on the very first bootup (HoHah!) without the annoying looping problem. The procedure for (Not connectd properly) was as follows: 1) Open computer being aware of ESD and its potential dangers - I have an anti-static mat with a wrist anti-static grounding strap. 2) Verify that the floppy connection is connected to the motherboard FDD connector. If it appears to be connected, disconnect and reconnect the cable to verify the cable is seated properly. 3) Verify that the floppy cable coming from the motherboard is connected to the back of the floppy drive - this is what I disconnected/reconnected 4) Verify that a power connection is also connected to the back of the floppy drive - I reseated this also. 5) If the floppy cable has more than one connection verify that you are connecting the floppy to the appropriate connection. Given that following the above procedure does not work, there may be bad hardware for which the procedure is: For Bad Hardware: If you continue to experience issues after following the above steps, it is likely that hardware within the computer is bad. Attempt to replace the following hardware in the computer in the order below: 1) Replace the floppy data cable which connects the computer floppy drive to the motherboard\I/O board - this is what I would have attempted on my 3rd try mentioned above. 2) Replace the floppy if the floppy data cable did not resolve the problem. 3) Replace or requet that the motherboard\I/O board be replaced. -- Tom

03-02-2005, 01:10 PM	#3 (permalink)
lotuseclat79 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5 OS: Win98SE	This is the Epilogue or what finally happened re: this problem: "...when the boot process has hiccups, there is a hardware problem". After the previously mentioned reseating of the data cable failed to provide a sustainable solution, i.e. the problem persisted, and a quick trip to the local PC vendor discovered that two caps (capacitors) on the motherboard had popped. The caps that are ok are flat on the top whereas the two that popped are not flat but raised in the middle of the cap that has an X or + scribed on its surface (what to look for when you inspect the motherboard). To round out the symptoms of this problem when the default Win98SE system was able to boot up eventually that I suspect were related to the popped caps: random system crashes via various actions like 1) mouse clicks, 2) screen freeze ups 3) mouse lock ups 4) Ctrl-Alt-Del lockups 5) rapid scroll-bar movement Another symptom regarding my system configuration is that since my 2nd disk is a Linux RH, the hardware browser got stuck and hung Linux on dealing with the floppy disk drive (the led stayed on), and all of the lockups mentioned above occurred. -- Tom P.S. Motherboard is obsolete VIA chipsets no longer made, as is the SDRAM and Pentium III processor, so I'm probably looking at purchasing a whole new system. I may be able to scavenge my DVD-RAM, CDROM, floppy drive, HDDs, soundblaster card, and video card, but will probably need a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply and full tower.