Help hardware gurus! Nothing boots! Mobo problem or....?

I'm hoping someone knowledgeable about hardware can point me in the right
direction. I recently was given an HP wx8000 workstation with twin Xeons. I
shipped it home well packed in my luggage. On arrival I got some POST beeps
codes that went away as soon as I reseated all the boards.

At this point everything was fine, and I installed a SATA raid PCI card and
cloned the OS over to twin mirrored SATA drives. Everything still fine, and
I started transferring data over from my old computer.

Today I started the computer and it would not boot. No POST messages--it got
through to where the Windows splash screen normally comes up and hung. I
tried it several times and sometimes the splash screen just starts to fade
up and is left hanging dimly. Other times it just hangs in black before the
screen appears

In safe mode it hangs just after the the "agp440.sys" driver loading
message comes up. I tried enabling VGA mode with no luck. I took out the
Quadro FX1100 graphics card (AGP) and tried it in my other computer. It
works fine there, so I assume that it is OK. I didn't try loading the driver
there but I can boot into Windows in default graphics mode without any
problem.

Then tried booting with Winternals ERD Commander. This also hangs after
loading the drivers. The HP restore disk hangs in the same place, just after
the big status bar across the bottom is loaded and up comes the message
"Please Wait". Windows XP setup hangs in the same place--it loads all
drivers and then says something like "Setup is starting Windows" and doesn't
move from there.

I disconnected all the PCI boards, including the SATA raid card and tried
again with the original IDE disk. Same same. Tried clearing all the ESCD
data. No luck.

So the question is: where from here? Has anyone seen anything similar? This
is a nice machine and I would really like to get it working. Could this be
some sort of motherboard failure. I just don't know enough about hardware to
know what next step to take.

Any ideas welcomed. TIA.

Toby

Hmmmm...I'm thinking now that I have a defective DIMM slot. I've swapped
memory without the problem changing. I have 2x512 MB modules in banks 1 & 2
for a total of 2 GB. Pulling the modules from bank 2 and trying to run on 1
GB doesn't change the problem, nor does substituting the modules.
Unfortunately I can't skip the first bank, so if there is a problem it must
be in that first bank. Does this sound logical? Ouch, I'm not looking
forward to replacing the system board...

Anything else to try first before doing that? I'd hate to go to all the
trouble if there is something I am overlooking.

Toby

"Toby" <kymarto123@ybb.ne.jpp> wrote in message
news:48252476$0$12795$bb4e3ad8@newscene.com...
> I'm hoping someone knowledgeable about hardware can point me in the right
> direction. I recently was given an HP wx8000 workstation with twin Xeons.
> I shipped it home well packed in my luggage. On arrival I got some POST
> beeps codes that went away as soon as I reseated all the boards.
>
> At this point everything was fine, and I installed a SATA raid PCI card
> and cloned the OS over to twin mirrored SATA drives. Everything still
> fine, and I started transferring data over from my old computer.
>
> Today I started the computer and it would not boot. No POST messages--it
> got through to where the Windows splash screen normally comes up and hung.
> I tried it several times and sometimes the splash screen just starts to
> fade up and is left hanging dimly. Other times it just hangs in black
> before the screen appears
>
> In safe mode it hangs just after the the "agp440.sys" driver loading
> message comes up. I tried enabling VGA mode with no luck. I took out the
> Quadro FX1100 graphics card (AGP) and tried it in my other computer. It
> works fine there, so I assume that it is OK. I didn't try loading the
> driver there but I can boot into Windows in default graphics mode without
> any problem.
>
> Then tried booting with Winternals ERD Commander. This also hangs after
> loading the drivers. The HP restore disk hangs in the same place, just
> after the big status bar across the bottom is loaded and up comes the
> message "Please Wait". Windows XP setup hangs in the same place--it loads
> all drivers and then says something like "Setup is starting Windows" and
> doesn't move from there.
>
> I disconnected all the PCI boards, including the SATA raid card and tried
> again with the original IDE disk. Same same. Tried clearing all the ESCD
> data. No luck.
>
> So the question is: where from here? Has anyone seen anything similar?
> This is a nice machine and I would really like to get it working. Could
> this be some sort of motherboard failure. I just don't know enough about
> hardware to know what next step to take.
>
> Any ideas welcomed. TIA.
>
> Toby
>

Toby wrote:
> I'm hoping someone knowledgeable about hardware can point me in the right
> direction. I recently was given an HP wx8000 workstation with twin Xeons. I
> shipped it home well packed in my luggage. On arrival I got some POST beeps
> codes that went away as soon as I reseated all the boards.
>
> At this point everything was fine, and I installed a SATA raid PCI card and
> cloned the OS over to twin mirrored SATA drives. Everything still fine, and
> I started transferring data over from my old computer.
>
> Today I started the computer and it would not boot. No POST messages--it got
> through to where the Windows splash screen normally comes up and hung. I
> tried it several times and sometimes the splash screen just starts to fade
> up and is left hanging dimly. Other times it just hangs in black before the
> screen appears
>
> In safe mode it hangs just after the the "agp440.sys" driver loading
> message comes up. I tried enabling VGA mode with no luck. I took out the
> Quadro FX1100 graphics card (AGP) and tried it in my other computer. It
> works fine there, so I assume that it is OK. I didn't try loading the driver
> there but I can boot into Windows in default graphics mode without any
> problem.
>
> Then tried booting with Winternals ERD Commander. This also hangs after
> loading the drivers. The HP restore disk hangs in the same place, just after
> the big status bar across the bottom is loaded and up comes the message
> "Please Wait". Windows XP setup hangs in the same place--it loads all
> drivers and then says something like "Setup is starting Windows" and doesn't
> move from there.
>
> I disconnected all the PCI boards, including the SATA raid card and tried
> again with the original IDE disk. Same same. Tried clearing all the ESCD
> data. No luck.
>
> So the question is: where from here? Has anyone seen anything similar? This
> is a nice machine and I would really like to get it working. Could this be
> some sort of motherboard failure. I just don't know enough about hardware to
> know what next step to take.
>
> Any ideas welcomed. TIA.

I just had a similar problem, though with substantially different
hardware. It turned out to be a bad memory module in my case.

"Grinder" <grinder@no.spam.maam.com> wrote in message
news:_eaVj.157446$yE1.94379@attbi_s21...
> Toby wrote:
>> I'm hoping someone knowledgeable about hardware can point me in the right
>> direction. I recently was given an HP wx8000 workstation with twin Xeons.
>> I shipped it home well packed in my luggage. On arrival I got some POST
>> beeps codes that went away as soon as I reseated all the boards.
>>
>> At this point everything was fine, and I installed a SATA raid PCI card
>> and cloned the OS over to twin mirrored SATA drives. Everything still
>> fine, and I started transferring data over from my old computer.
>>
>> Today I started the computer and it would not boot. No POST messages--it
>> got through to where the Windows splash screen normally comes up and
>> hung. I tried it several times and sometimes the splash screen just
>> starts to fade up and is left hanging dimly. Other times it just hangs in
>> black before the screen appears
>>
>> In safe mode it hangs just after the the "agp440.sys" driver loading
>> message comes up. I tried enabling VGA mode with no luck. I took out the
>> Quadro FX1100 graphics card (AGP) and tried it in my other computer. It
>> works fine there, so I assume that it is OK. I didn't try loading the
>> driver there but I can boot into Windows in default graphics mode without
>> any problem.
>>
>> Then tried booting with Winternals ERD Commander. This also hangs after
>> loading the drivers. The HP restore disk hangs in the same place, just
>> after the big status bar across the bottom is loaded and up comes the
>> message "Please Wait". Windows XP setup hangs in the same place--it loads
>> all drivers and then says something like "Setup is starting Windows" and
>> doesn't move from there.
>>
>> I disconnected all the PCI boards, including the SATA raid card and tried
>> again with the original IDE disk. Same same. Tried clearing all the ESCD
>> data. No luck.
>>
>> So the question is: where from here? Has anyone seen anything similar?
>> This is a nice machine and I would really like to get it working. Could
>> this be some sort of motherboard failure. I just don't know enough about
>> hardware to know what next step to take.
>>
>> Any ideas welcomed. TIA.
>
> I just had a similar problem, though with substantially different
> hardware. It turned out to be a bad memory module in my case.

Thanks, I'm running memtest right now, but I suspect a bad AGP slot...

Toby

Toby wrote:
> "Grinder" <grinder@no.spam.maam.com> wrote in message
> news:_eaVj.157446$yE1.94379@attbi_s21...
>> Toby wrote:
>>> I'm hoping someone knowledgeable about hardware can point me in the right
>>> direction. I recently was given an HP wx8000 workstation with twin Xeons.
>>> I shipped it home well packed in my luggage. On arrival I got some POST
>>> beeps codes that went away as soon as I reseated all the boards.
>>>
>>> At this point everything was fine, and I installed a SATA raid PCI card
>>> and cloned the OS over to twin mirrored SATA drives. Everything still
>>> fine, and I started transferring data over from my old computer.
>>>
>>> Today I started the computer and it would not boot. No POST messages--it
>>> got through to where the Windows splash screen normally comes up and
>>> hung. I tried it several times and sometimes the splash screen just
>>> starts to fade up and is left hanging dimly. Other times it just hangs in
>>> black before the screen appears
>>>
>>> In safe mode it hangs just after the the "agp440.sys" driver loading
>>> message comes up. I tried enabling VGA mode with no luck. I took out the
>>> Quadro FX1100 graphics card (AGP) and tried it in my other computer. It
>>> works fine there, so I assume that it is OK. I didn't try loading the
>>> driver there but I can boot into Windows in default graphics mode without
>>> any problem.
>>>
>>> Then tried booting with Winternals ERD Commander. This also hangs after
>>> loading the drivers. The HP restore disk hangs in the same place, just
>>> after the big status bar across the bottom is loaded and up comes the
>>> message "Please Wait". Windows XP setup hangs in the same place--it loads
>>> all drivers and then says something like "Setup is starting Windows" and
>>> doesn't move from there.
>>>
>>> I disconnected all the PCI boards, including the SATA raid card and tried
>>> again with the original IDE disk. Same same. Tried clearing all the ESCD
>>> data. No luck.
>>>
>>> So the question is: where from here? Has anyone seen anything similar?
>>> This is a nice machine and I would really like to get it working. Could
>>> this be some sort of motherboard failure. I just don't know enough about
>>> hardware to know what next step to take.
>>>
>>> Any ideas welcomed. TIA.
>> I just had a similar problem, though with substantially different
>> hardware. It turned out to be a bad memory module in my case.
>
> Thanks, I'm running memtest right now, but I suspect a bad AGP slot...

I could never get memtest to produce any errors with that bad module.
Replacing it with an identically spec'd component instantly and forever
(so far) solved my problem.