my ancient p2b board -wondering why it's semi-dead

Just in case anyone can diagnose a P-2b flaw on the fly from a
description, I'm interested in knowing if this board is genuinely
post-mortem.

It's my original P2b which I bought new 4-5 years ago. Rev 1.02. I
made the mistake of lending this computer to an acquaintance to
practise his skills on about 2 years ago, (it ws by then my second
computer) and one fine day after i had it back, (with win98se OS) it
froze on boot-up at the desktop. Couldn't reboot it at all. Did a
reinstall over it which constantly (about 10 tries at this) would
hang frozen at 13 minutes left when it was examining the mobo
hardware itself, I forget the exact terminology of the space...

Put it on the shelf for a couple of years and then a few months ago,
for kicks more than anything, I took it down and tried to install
winxp with it , which surprisingly loaded. But all was not well as it
does not reboot;, it wouldn't reboot even during the install phases
when it is supposed to, it freezes at the screen that says windows is
closing, and I have to manually reboot It will not shut down properly
either. I have to press the shut off button on the tower because it
freezes at the shut off screen. Kind of like the p2b-F flaw, except
this is probably a congenital hardware flaw-condition due to the fact
that it won't reboot from inside windows either.

Funny that it could be a decent server board in the sense that it'll
probably run 24/7 just so's you didn't need to reboot it. A funny
defect. Not worth selling, i keep it around for cannibalization of
parts should the need occur.

So I was wondering if this was a symptom of something obvious to
someone with knowledge of these boards and if there might exist a
cheap solution, given that these board are fairly cheap to acquire
nowadays

the end and thanks for listening,
eric

First did you reinstall windows 98 over a previous install or did you format
the drive and install windows. If you reinstall windows over a non working
version most of the time it will not work. You have to start with a clean
drive. As to the problem with xp not shutting off the computer that is an
easy fix. Go into the control panel, power options, select APM tab and tick
the box enable advance power management and the system will power off.

Good luck

Homer

<eric RemoveThis @egypt.net> wrote in message
news:dap5605i9ufnk2tup5mhouolrh5r1j8kgm@4ax.com...
 > Just in case anyone can diagnose a P-2b flaw on the fly from a
 > description, I'm interested in knowing if this board is genuinely
 > post-mortem.
 >
 > It's my original P2b which I bought new 4-5 years ago. Rev 1.02. I
 > made the mistake of lending this computer to an acquaintance to
 > practise his skills on about 2 years ago, (it ws by then my second
 > computer) and one fine day after i had it back, (with win98se OS) it
 > froze on boot-up at the desktop. Couldn't reboot it at all. Did a
 > reinstall over it which constantly (about 10 tries at this) would
 > hang frozen at 13 minutes left when it was examining the mobo
 > hardware itself, I forget the exact terminology of the space...
 >
 > Put it on the shelf for a couple of years and then a few months ago,
 > for kicks more than anything, I took it down and tried to install
 > winxp with it , which surprisingly loaded. But all was not well as it
 > does not reboot;, it wouldn't reboot even during the install phases
 > when it is supposed to, it freezes at the screen that says windows is
 > closing, and I have to manually reboot It will not shut down properly
 > either. I have to press the shut off button on the tower because it
 > freezes at the shut off screen. Kind of like the p2b-F flaw, except
 > this is probably a congenital hardware flaw-condition due to the fact
 > that it won't reboot from inside windows either.
 >
 > Funny that it could be a decent server board in the sense that it'll
 > probably run 24/7 just so's you didn't need to reboot it. A funny
 > defect. Not worth selling, i keep it around for cannibalization of
 > parts should the need occur.
 >
 > So I was wondering if this was a symptom of something obvious to
 > someone with knowledge of these boards and if there might exist a
 > cheap solution, given that these board are fairly cheap to acquire
 > nowadays
 >
 > the end and thanks for listening,
 > eric
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->