MaximumPC 2005 11

Ask the Doctor

56 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005

how 2 IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME

Continued from page 5 5

GHOST IN THE MACHINE

My computer turns on by itself. I’ve already shut

off all the relevant BIOS options: boot on keyboard,

mouse, network, and so on. The problem persists

even though I’ve completely reformatted my system.

What’s causing this?

—Daphne Ketchum

If you’re absolutely sure you have turned off

all the BIOS “wake on” modes, the most likely

culprit is the setting that dictates what the

machine does after a power loss. In the event

of a blackout, or even if you accidentally turn

off the power strip, the BIOS on most mother-

boards defaults to restoring the PC to its latest

state—off—when the power comes back. Yours,

however, might be set to turn on.

Another possibility is that your network adapt-

er has a “wake on” setting. Open the Windows

Device Manager, expand the Network Adapter

heading, and right-click your Ethernet controller.

Click the Advanced tab and look for “wake up

capabilities,” or something similar. If that’s not the

problem, it’s possible a bad power supply or some

other piece of faulty hardware is shorting out and

restarting the board. Make sure all your add-in

cards and power connectors are

firmly plugged in, too.

MY NARCOLEPTIC PC

When I boot my PC after it’s been

shut down for a while, everything

is fine for about 20 minutes, and

then it shuts down on its own. The

only way to get it to turn back on

is to pull the power cord, wait for

the light on the power supply to go

out, and then plug it back in. I’ve

thoroughly checked the machine

for viruses, and I’ve even replaced

the battery on the mobo.

— J.T. Allen

Not knowing all your hardware

specs makes it tough for the

Doctor to diagnose your prob-

lem, but his first guess is that

your PC’s power supply is the

cause. If you can borrow a

friend’s PSU, swap it out and

see if the problem goes away.

It’s also possible that the

machine is overheating, but that’s

a long shot, because the machine

would crash repeatedly.

PREMATURE BOOT-ULATION

I just built my first computer, using an Asus A8N SLI

Deluxe mobo, but I can’t get into its BIOS. The com-

puter seems to be working fine, but I want to disable

its onboard sound. An onscreen message tells me

to hit the Delete key to enter setup, which I’ve done

repeatedly, but the machine just continues booting

until Windows starts up.

—Stephen Konkol

You’re probably just encountering a timing

problem. If your monitor takes a few seconds to

respond to an incoming video signal, and you’re

waiting for that “press Delete to enter setup”

message to appear, it might already be too late.

Power off your PC, restart it, and begin mashing

the Delete key about once every second until you

get into the BIOS. Once

you’re in, disable the

“quick boot” feature, so

you’ll have more time to

do this in the future.

If that doesn’t work

and you’re using a USB

keyboard, try plugging in

a PS/2 keyboard, instead. Most new mobos work

fine with the majority of USB keyboards, but we’ve

encountered a few that prevented us from access-

ing the BIOS.

MORSE CODE?

I recently installed an 80GB Hitachi Deskstar drive in

my daughter’s PC. Now when the machine boots, it

produces a series of beeps. I found a listing of generic

beep codes on the Internet, which tells me that the

beeps indicate a problem stemming from either the

power supply or the motherboard. Is there any way to

test the power supply before I drop more money on a

new motherboard?

—Sean Butler

That series of beeps is a POST (power-on self

test) code, which is designed to alert you to a

problem that’s preventing your PC from booting.

Unfortunately, the beep codes aren’t as universal

as Morse code. To learn the specific meaning of

yours, find out what type of BIOS is installed and

then check your motherboard manual (which

should be available on the manufacturer’s web-

site, if you don’t have a copy). Before you spend

more money on hardware, make sure your RAM

isn’t the problem. Move the PC’s memory sticks

into different DIMM slots and reboot. If that

doesn’t work, remove all the modules except one,

and swap them out until the PC boots normally.

The next step would be to replace the power

supply, but if that doesn’t work, the only solution

might be to replace the motherboard.

THE URGE TO MERGE

I’d like to consolidate my storage needs into a

single hard drive of either 200- or 300GB. My

motherboard has Serial ATA ports, but I’ve never

used them. Is it worthwhile to purchase a Serial

ATA hard drive over a standard IDE hard drive? If it

is, can I transfer everything from my existing hard

drives to the new hard drive?

—Steven Facker

First things first, Steve: There is no performance

difference between SATA hard drives and parallel

ATA hard drives of the same make and model.

The SATA interface offers more bandwidth than

PATA, but it’s a moot point because not even

Your PC’s not possessed. If it’s randomly powering

itself on, despite your disabling all its “wake on” fea-

tures in the BIOS, check its Ethernet card’s properties

within Windows’ Device Manager.

Are the four horsemen of the apocalypse running roughshod over your

PC? Tell War, Pestilence, Death, and Famine to take a hike, because

the Doctor is here. And because redemption is priceless, the Doctor’s

services are free. Just send an email describing your problem to

[email protected].