Siemens TF3 Scenic Mobile 510 AGP -- acting up! Please help!

[blackd0t]

Hello, everyone!

Here's a little story. My friend has a laptop, but few weeks ago the laptop started to malfunction. The computer would boot, showed the SIEMENS logo, the message: "For diagnostic screen press <ESC> for setup press <F2>" and then everything hung up. This friend of mine told me the problem started suddenly. He just restarted the computer one day and than he couldn't start the system anymore.

He gave the laptop to the people at tech-support and after few days they told him that the mainboard is fried (lol). He couldn't believe them so he gave me the laptop and told me that I can do with it what I want. Indeed, there was a problem just as I described. The laptop stayed at my house and I haven't powered it up as I was thinking what to do with it. Tonight, though, I powered it up just to see what happens one more time and then after the laptop displayed the mentioned info I heard a beep and the system started to boot . I did that a few more times during the next hour and than it stopped working again :/.

Please, does any of you know what might be the cause of the problem?
I'm looking forward to any replies.

Regards,
Black Dot.

 

[mistercomputer]

I think I might remove the hard drive and see if I can boot into BIOS. If I can, I might be inclined to try another HD. If not, chunk it.

 

[blackd0t]

I have the drive removed already, because people at the tech-support copy data from it. I managed to see how the computer boots just before it locks up. Here's what can be seen:

BIOS RELEASE VERSION 3D31
Build Time: 06/07/99 18:41:35
Notebook ID: 26607032
CPU = Pentium II 366 MHz
640K System RAM Passed
130048K Extended RAM Passed
0256K Cache SRAM Passed
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upper limit segment address: E981
Mouse initialized

And then a lockup... I can't even get to bios when I press F2. It locks up just during the moment when it's supposed to get into the BIOS settings screen or boot the system.

 

[CntdwnToExtn]

because it's from Siemens...they are a bunch of money hungy bastards......
oh anyway,

did you try to reset cmos with the jumper?