10 replies to this topic

[roderz]

Sorry for the long post, but just wondering if any of you tech's out there have had this problem

Sods law, got called out to a 2 dead reel king's,
Both the pc's would not boot, as if they had lost the bios setting's,
And because astra are cheap skate's they don't put a fe*king switch on the pc!!!

Stripped the pc down and shorted the link to boot the pc, set up the bios, and booted - every thing fine - yay

2nd machine appeared to have the exact same problem, and did the same as above to get the pc up and running,
BUT after putting all the covers back on the pc and connecting every thing else up, applied power and the pc just sat here beeping at me

So now the pc just sits there giving out one long beep - pause - one long beep, repeatedly

The attendant did say that that was the original problem they had with it since last week, which I find odd because this problem is normally fatal (mobo' shagged) and requires a new pc, but as i said it did come bank to life at one point!

Anyone shed any light please?

[stanmarsh14]

Deffo a base PC unit problem here, as it's sending a DOS bleep code.

Way you are talking, it makes me wonder if the unit's BIOS chip is totaly shagged, and it deffo will NOT be a cheep repair job, unless you can find a replacement BIOS chip on e-bay (Yep, they do actualy pop up often there, and can actualy save you a fortune, this is assuming you can actualy find the one you need).

Need to know the manu's name of the BIOS, to understand the bleep code, but think in most cases, one long bleep = f***ed BIOS / CPU / Memory / VGA

The following, maybe of help to determin, what fault you actualy have: DOS Beep Chart - Telephony and Computer Related Acronyms and Their Meanings - Acronyms Online

[roderz]

Deffo a base PC unit problem here, as it's sending a DOS bleep code.

Way you are talking, it makes me wonder if the unit's BIOS chip is totaly shagged, and it deffo will NOT be a cheep repair job, unless you can find a replacement BIOS chip on e-bay (Yep, they do actualy pop up often there, and can actualy save you a fortune, this is assuming you can actualy find the one you need).

Need to know the manu's name of the BIOS, to understand the bleep code, but think in most cases, one long bleep = f***ed BIOS / CPU / Memory / VGA

The following, maybe of help to determin, what fault you actualy have: DOS Beep Chart - Telephony and Computer Related Acronyms and Their Meanings - Acronyms Online

Tend to agree, I have had this fault twice before on a slotto and a reel king and changed everything possible - ram, cpu, hd
replacements had to be got in the end.

The weird thing this time is that it did come back to life.
Should have left it on while I put it back together LOL

As a side note, considering the price of these astra's the build quality has got to be the worst I've EVER seen, and I've seen some shit I can tell you.

[skabaz]

As a side note, considering the price of these astra's the build quality has got to be the worst I've EVER seen, and I've seen some shit I can tell you.

thats why we dont touch astras anymore.


baz

[roderz]

Just an update for anyone who's interested,
Managed to get this up and running again,
I removed the bios battery and left pc in workshop and promptly forgot about it as we had a spare!
Had a look at it again yesterday and the permanent beeping had gone and was booting to bios setup, checked the old battery and that was dead
Put new battery in and all is good again ;-)

Must have been the dying battery was cocking up the on board ram to the extent that it wouldn't get to the bios boot.

Just as well really because the spare I put in went down today!!

[stanmarsh14]

Bit odd that, as I thought most PC mainboards, normaly give you a warning about low BIOS battery.

Still, all sorted now, that's what matters

Just an update for anyone who's interested,
Managed to get this up and running again,
I removed the bios battery and left pc in workshop and promptly forgot about it as we had a spare!
Had a look at it again yesterday and the permanent beeping had gone and was booting to bios setup, checked the old battery and that was dead
Put new battery in and all is good again ;-)

Must have been the dying battery was cocking up the on board ram to the extent that it wouldn't get to the bios boot.

Just as well really because the spare I put in went down today!!

[nails]

my number one hate machine (in regards to problems) is project, followed closely by astra.

[hurricane]

I posted a thread a while back reguarding reel king about how its always slow on boot up and tends to bomb out and hang as its just about to get past the 'This machine is random screen' plus everytime you go to put money in it, it takes ages for the money to register. Could this be Cmos Battery related as well. Or is the actual motherboard on its way out, and one last thing can you do disk defrags to these as well?

[roderz]

I posted a thread a while back reguarding reel king about how its always slow on boot up and tends to bomb out and hang as its just about to get past the 'This machine is random screen' plus everytime you go to put money in it, it takes ages for the money to register. Could this be Cmos Battery related as well. Or is the actual motherboard on its way out, and one last thing can you do disk defrags to these as well?

Wouldn't think that was battery related really,
As for defrag, the OS partition should not need it as it is protected using xpe's EWF Manager, this prevents any changes to the C partition, for example if you install a program it will appear to install and run but on next re-boot it will have vanished !!
found this out when fitting a UPS to our machines, did get there in the end by disabling protection-install-protect bla bla..More info here EWF Manager Commands

The game files and OS virtual memory file are on partition D, this could be defraged but weather it would improve matters I don't know.

Might be worth emabling S.M.A.R.T in the bios in-case the HD is on the way out.

[youbrokeit]

Strange things do happen when CMOS batteries go - I've had systems that won't POST, settings that alter and don't report, as well as the usual settings which don't remain, clocks resetting etc.

I've not worked with Astras, but my background is in PC hardware, and it seems that the cheaper, or more customised motherboards (which I guess these will have) are more random in their faults reporting.

As for speed - defragging the OS drive would probably make no difference at all - if, indeed, the protection will allow you. The 'virtual' drive with the game etc. on it will most likely be created dynamically, or will be contained in a file on the main OS drive, again, defrags not helpful there. Chances are if it's slowing down THAT much, you're looking at hardware failure - overheating CPU, or maybe incorrect settings in BIOS (cache off, wrong CPU setting etc).

I am actually in the market for something like a ReelKing (or equivalent, RR, Slotto, etc) to use at home, (Harrogate, HG1), so if anyone reading has a spare, do let me know

[cardie]

thats why we dont touch astras anymore.


baz

just reminded me

in my local arcade a few year ago they got the new party time double decker and a fortune house aswell....

must of been there a week then they got rid of them

alarms going off all time and people going mental because the top boards reels were made out of piss and kept catching cables and getting stuck triggering alarms

were as early 2000 the partytimes now are still going strong