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Home / I-Opener Areas / I-Opener General Posts I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black

I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) uhga Has anyopne seen this? I plug in the power supply, and the green/yellow light on the power switch comes on, but the screen is dark. if i try to switch the power on and off, nothing happens. (not even the power light changes.) The i-opener was shipped on 05/04/00. Any ideas? Thanks, -Ulrich 07-18-2000 19:04:10

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) cytech press and hold the power button................. 07-18-2000 19:15:12

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile pull the battery OUT, and UNplug the power cord... I have to do that with one of mine... I have it running win98 fine, hehe, but, I have that same problem when I reboot.. so far NObody on this site has thought of an answer... I'm just certain its gonna be one of those, "just do this" answers... but, I'll be dammed if I can figger it out... also, everyone should prolly UNplug the power cord while plugging in a HD... to make Sure its powered down.... 07-19-2000 18:14:55

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Cytech has got it right.....After plugging in the ac adapter.....every time you do it.....hold down the power button for at least 8 seconds. Then you can power on normally. This happened to mine after the bios chip was exchanged for a V1. No big deal. Try the battery trick....I never did. 07-20-2000 02:14:21

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile ckbone, sorry, I'm having trouble...dummy here I guess... battery out, plug in, hold button Forever... then, have to press it to turn on... runs win98 fine... shutdown... push Nothing... then, press button once... black screen, Nothing... but, unplug, push button, On it comes... but, I'd like to not have to unplug each time I start it... thanks for any usefull help 07-20-2000 07:29:02

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Hold on here....You're booting up without the battery? Why? Thats what holds your BIOS settings in memory. Am I reading you wrong? 07-20-2000 15:52:54

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) -pyr- Profile like ckbone says the battery is used to keep your BIOS settings so you shouldnt have to keep it out. Your system should work just fine without the battery in it as the default bios settings will work, but it wont be optimised and so your system will be slower than it has to be. I know its a long shot, but open your io and look near the bottom. by the power plug there is a white ribbon going into a plug. pull out the little tabs on each side of that, pull the ribbon out, then reinsert it making sure it is firmly in, then push the tabs back in. if that fails, then look for other problems. Is the hard drive pushing on the board too hard? do you have any shorts anywhere? make sure you are running with the RF shield. I had it off one time and the io wouldnt run. It worked all the other times but just that one time it wouldnt no matter what I did. still not sure why. 07-20-2000 19:32:35

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile thanks pyr, ok, no battery, no rf shield, HD hanging freely, win98 runs, Fine... but, I Must unplug after shutdown, in order to reboot... else, just blackscreen.. no matter how long I hold the button down... beats the crap outa me... please tell me what I am missing without the battery... what is not optimized? I don't think I understand.. btw, I have the heatsink on, and temp is fine, just dont want to put it back together without the batt, unless no other solution. thanks for any usefull suggestions 07-21-2000 07:39:05

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) sodomizer Profile redwood - My boss picked up a V4. After flashing the V1 BIOS, the machine worked fine at powerup without a hard drive. Hard drive added, the machine will boot reliably, but only if the power is disconnected. The machine will boot without the power disconnect, but it's unreliable, taking 4 or 5 trys with the power button to get it to turn on. I'm thinking that there is something leftover in the NVRAM from the V4 BIOS. When a hard drive is added, the V1 BIOS is then looking at that "something" and interpreting it as some sort of power control counter. Setting the default BIOS and SETUP values didn't change this. I will try removing the battery in an attempt to scramble the NVRAM. My experiences with NVRAM in the past suggest that some types can hold on to data for very long periods of time without power. I think what we all really need is some kind of utility that would write the NVRAM with all zeros. sod 07-21-2000 08:12:33

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) sodomizer Profile redwood - My boss picked up a V4. After flashing the V1 BIOS, the machine worked fine at powerup without a hard drive. Hard drive added, the machine will boot reliably, but only if the power is disconnected. The machine will boot without the power disconnect, but it's unreliable, taking 4 or 5 trys with the power button to get it to turn on. I'm thinking that there is something leftover in the NVRAM from the V4 BIOS. When a hard drive is added, the V1 BIOS is then looking at that "something" and interpreting it as some sort of power control counter. Setting the default BIOS and SETUP values didn't change this. I will try removing the battery in an attempt to scramble the NVRAM. My experiences with NVRAM in the past suggest that some types can hold on to data for very long periods of time without power. I think what we all really need is some kind of utility that would write the NVRAM with all zeros. sod 07-21-2000 08:13:42

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) phred Profile Is it possible that the power management features of Win98 are causing your IO to behave this way? On a regular PC, when you tell Win98 to shut down, it turns the power off on the PC. Perhaps it is trying to do the same to the IO and just putting it in a weird state. To test it, with Win98 running, try to power the IO down by holding the on/off swith for 10-15 seconds, and then see if it comes up again. Win98 phred 07-21-2000 10:59:53

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) sodomizer Profile phred - I'm seeing this behaviour before Windows even boots up, so I'm pretty certain it's something to do with the BIOS and the addition of a hard drive affecting the BIOS. At least, that is the situation here. Plug in, press button, see BIOS splash screen. Press button, unit goes off (including HD motor), them press button again. HD motor spins, but screen is black. Press button multiple times, HD motor off/on, screen black. Press again and HD motor is on and BIOS splash screen is seen again. Unplug, replug power supply and screen comes on every time with single button press after power re-attached. sod 07-21-2000 11:19:04

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Here are two things to try: I remember at least two pentium boards I had that would do a nvram update if you held down the insert key during a cold boot. Also....has any one tried the reset switch right over the parallel port? Seems to me you could access this with a long pin thru that small hole. Unplug the I-Opener from the AC....hold down the switch for 3/4 seconds, let up , reconnect the AC, reboot. You need to have the battery in for this to be successful. You will have to go through BIOS setup again. I also wonder if that reset switch could be giving you problems.....having something pushing on it when the case is put together...or maybe it's shorting out? 07-21-2000 16:10:02

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile thanks for the ideas... ok, pressing the reset key Does let it reboot, I guess that cuts the power, like UNpluging... I booted in dos, shutdown, wouldn't reboot.. I'll next try with the battery, see if the reset will work with it in, but, this seems kinda silly to do, but, I will keep at it! please keep up yer suggestions, this board has an amazing braintrust, and, I appreciate it! thanks for any usefull suggestions 07-22-2000 11:28:34

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) -pyr- Profile hmm another idea. probably go in the scrap heap with the ones youve already tried, but... Some boards hold a charge even after you shut them down. that means you have to find some way to dissipate it. Do you have a mouse plugged into it? USB or PS2? also, try switching keyboards, not likely I know but who knows. if you are using a ps2 splitter, swap the mouse and keyboard, or try not using it. 07-22-2000 12:05:26

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Now that I think about it.....I have seen at least two computers which would not boot properly if an attached USB device(with a separate power supply) was powered up before the computer was powered on. Probably some kind of diode problem in the device or the board. Those same computers had shut-down problems also if the USB device was even attached. 07-22-2000 12:34:03

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile well, I spent the day, used all my keyboards, mice, usb, ps/2, original IO... no changes, btw, How in the world does anybody use the IO keyboard mouse button? my webplayer trackball is Much better... I did isolate a bad usb net adpt... one good, one bad... so, with the good one, I'm able to do most things with usb/network without too many problems... My goal, setup these two machines, each in one of my girls rooms, upstairs, so, I'm thinking of the 1mb phone network usb connection, hope those work ok... I will continue trying any good suggestions... btw, I went thru both bios settings, identical... only thing I don't understand, how does the unit without the battery, and unplugged... hold the HD info? when I turn it on in the morning, no search for new HD, it just starts fine... thanks guys! 07-23-2000 09:24:05

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile The answer to your last question is easy....it doesn't. Without the battery, the bios settings just revert to default...which probably detects hard drives by the "auto" setting. It's just re-detecting the hard drive upon each boot. Now if it would remember the date without the battery.... 07-23-2000 09:46:16

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile if the date is the only thing I give up, I can live with that... I can run programs to update that whenever online... but, someone said it wouldn't be 'optimized' but, hehe, maybe my other one isn't either? :) I'm no bios expert... 07-23-2000 13:18:02

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Having inconsistent dates can screw up a lot of things...I wouldn't do it except if nothing else worked. Please explain again why you have to remove the battery. If it won't turn on without being disconnected from the AC, why not plug the AC adapter into a power strip, and turn it off/on with the switch on the power strip? One more thing.....Do you have a Badflash BIOS chip? If not...get one. Then post about your fixed I-Opener. 07-23-2000 13:59:38

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile ckbone, with the battery OUT, I can turn off with a powerstrip... NOT with it in... I am TOO Chicken to change the bios.... :) I'm afraid I'll just have the problems so many others have had, mine is gooped... could you explain why I would need to do that? I figger flashing mine, is the same as replaceing with another... listen, I follow directions fairly well...but, I'm no pioneer... I just love this msg board, and makeing a useful box out of a Very Cheap project... like you said, a compairable one would be WAY more expensive... 07-23-2000 15:12:31

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Redwood...I'm trying to help here, but I'm loosing something in translation. What you just said was the I-Opener won't turn off if you turn off the power strip switch,to which it is connected, if you have the battery in. How can it stay on if the AC is cut off? Scraping off epoxy is not very hard. A razor blade...some small screwdrivers....patience....no sweat. BIOS problems could cause the very problem you have. A flashed chip is not always perfect. A chip from Badflash on the other hand probably is. 07-23-2000 15:31:04

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) -pyr- Profile I would say dont cut the bios chip out for sure. There is no reason at all to do that. Hmm.. Oh like I said, sometime the board could hold a charge, so how about if you try attaching a fan. If you have a fan attached using cn13 and you shut down, the fan will waste any possible charge that is being held, and thereby possibly allowing you to boot up. Overall the date thing would not be that big of a deal. very annoying but it would do no harm at all unless you run a program that is date sensitive. If having the battery out works for you and it is the only way you can get it to boot, and it is something you can deal with no problem. If you can, you might even try to return it and swap it for another one, tho that seems rather unlikely given the current situation with availability at the moment. 07-23-2000 18:46:20

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile sorry if I"m not clear, ok, this is what Works... battery out, unplug, Otherwise, it holds a charge, and restarting just gives a black screen... I thought this was more common, but, doesn't look like anybody posting with samek problem, so, I guess I have a spare battery... thanks for the tips, I've tried them all! 07-24-2000 19:09:43

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) goober Profile You said that your bios chip is "gooped". How did you flash it to version 1 bios? In any case, if it is a bios related problem as ckbone pointed out, why not just reflash it? You are running Windows 98, just boot into dos mode and reflash the bios with AWD758.exe and the original io256kbios.bin image. If you don't have them, I can e-mail them to you. 07-24-2000 22:47:17

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile goober, I used dolly, and followed the instructions... :) I didn't know I could do it again, I'll look for those 2 programs, those are different from the dolly one, correct? I'll look into that, thanks... guess I can't mess the bios up from here? 07-25-2000 12:31:38

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) redwood Profile ok goober, I have the io256kbios.bin file, but, I'm haveing trouble locating the AWD758.exe, I must say the Award website isn't very friendly... if there is another place to d/l that, I'd appriciate it, thanks! 07-25-2000 17:24:18

RE:I-Opener does not power up... power light comes on but screen is black (modified 0 times) GuyMontag Profile Just was messing with my v5 today and noticed something nobody has mentioned (at least not that I caught, excuse me if it was posted before). On this v5 the "Power" button apparently only controls the screen after the first press when plugged in. I was watching the greeting, listening to the woman's voice and started pressing the power button. The sound never stopped, the screen and backlight went out and when pressed again the screen came back on (with backlight) at the proper point of the presentation. Even with the screen off, the LEDs came on at the appropriate time in the presentation. I hope this feature is still running when I have it mounted in the Jeep so that I can just turn off the screen without shutting the machine down. Visit http://www.dc2600.com 08-05-2000 17:30:57

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