[Dell XPS T750R] Won't Boot....

[C.Jackson]

I recently pulled out my old Dell that I put out of commission about 3 months ago with the hopes of getting it working again. After having it for years one day it just quit working. It will power up and come to the manufacturer splash screen and sometimes it will even post, but it always freezes before making it to the Windows splash screen. If it gets past posting it always gives me some bogus "Please remove disk or other media from the drive and press any key to reboot..." error. It's also given me some BIOs error codes while posting sometimes, which after some investigation I found they mean this:

1-2 (One beep -pause- two beeps)​

Search for option roms. One long, two short on checksum failure​

Matter of a fact it is one long beep then it is accompanied by two short. After posting this error, it powers the monitor down, but the computer seems to still be powered up (Fans all running like normal, ect.). I couldn't get it to boot several months ago and nothing much has changed. I've replaced the CMOS battery and I've been into the BIOs and set everything to default, but still nothing. In fact, sometimes the computer, like I mentioned before it likes to hang (freeze), will hang on the BIOs screen! It's puzzling me and frankly, having bought a new computer, wouldn't mind using this one for storage. Here's some more information on the computer, maybe some of you have some idea what's wrong with it because I'd like to use it again, if not for anything more than storage....

Dell XPS T750R
Pentium III 750MHz Processor
384MB Ram (Used to have 768, but I recycled the ram into my bros computer after mine failed)
27 GB Hard disk
Nvidia TNT2 Model 64 Video Card / 64MB ram

Not sure if it'll help anyone, but it's got Phoenix bios.

It's pretty old, but when I bought it over 5 years ago I paid over 5 grand for it. Just up until a few months ago it was performing just like usual and if it wouldn't have failed I wouldn't have bought a new computer, because I only used it for internet access, email, music, ect.. Maybe you guys can help, IDK, all ideas are welcome.

I guess this is the right place to post this, if not move it, but I'm pretty sure that it's probably something to do with a checksum failure unless I got the wrong codes. I got the codes here.

Thanks in Advance,
Devin

 

[lovely?]

hmm. have you noticed any smoke in your room recently?
just kidding. you know, alot of the time, with computers that old, their time has come and gone. they are all used up, and they explode. (or just stop working)

lol have you ever defraged, virus scanned, any software related items added recently, that kinda thing?

 

[lovely?]

and because it IS so old i do not suspect that the wires have just sort of popped out, that is very rare seeing as you have not led me to beleive you have even opened the case since your ram recycling.

 

[C.Jackson]

Actually I've been in and out of the case, right after I bought it I had to seat the ram because Dell didn't seem to seat it right. I also added a 80GB hard drive about 3 years ago, but I know enough to have checked wires and there aren't any that I haven't checked. I tried booting it again and it just persists (When it posts right) that there is a disk in the floppy drive, even when it's disconnected . I entered a Windows 98 boot disk just to see what I'd get, when it decides to read it, and not hang, I get to the menu alright and I can get the DOS prompt up, but I can't get any further than that. As much as I know about computers I've never used DOS much so nothing going there.
I've been messing around with it a bit more and now I get one long beep, two short, and one more long and then it comes up and says "No operating system found". All wires are seated like they should be and are connected so it's nothing there.
Before it's demise everything was fine, nothing added right before software-wise, but defrags are common with me and so are Windows reinstalls. The hard disk works fine because I stuck it in my other computer and used it for a while after the T750R took a trip (died).

I wish it would have died in a hurtle of smoke or with a fire, at least I'd have some idea what happened to it knowing where it originated ....

I just tried to set the jumper on the motherboard bios configuration to recovery and it gives me the one long beep, two short and tries over and over to read the floppy, the monitor never even tries to power on. I'm not sure what it's for but I also tried it in configuration mode and it took me to bios and the only new command I got was to delete administrative passwords. After going thru the bios checking everything it finally hung-up and I had to power it down. I'm stumped and the more I fool around with this computer the more confused I become not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience, but I'm open to suggestions at this point....

On the past few boots it has been posting fine, but it still thinks there is a disk in the drive. I get the "Remove disks or other media. Press any key to restart" error and after pressing a key it tries to read the floppy disk drive and repeats the error. It sometimes locks after hitting a few keys like it's been doing, but for now it's been posting fine. I'm sure everytime I boot it, it's not going to post right, but the past 7 times have been quite successful except the remove disk error.