Industrial PC common faults & troubleshooting

In practice use, the industrial PC has some failures due to hardware or software problems. The reasons for the failure can be roughly divided into five categories: First, the failure caused by the working environment, including unstable power supply, electromagnetic interference, high or low working environment temperature , even lightning strikes and other factors; Second, software failure; Third, failure caused by normal aging; Fourth, electrical connection failure; Fifth, human failure.

Today we have sorted out some common faults and solutions for them.

1. Turn on the Industrial PC and it does not respond

a. Check whether the connection of the industrial computer is correct and whether the power socket has electricity;

b. Check whether the power supply of the industrial computer is properly connected, and whether the connection of the monitor and the industrial PC is correct;

c. If all is normal, unplug the memory on the motherboard and restart the PC to see if it alarms;

d. If there is no alarm, please replace the CPU or motherboard.

2. Alarm sounds after power on the PC, and no display on screen

a. Open the case to check whether the memory is installed or loose;

b. Whether the alarm sound is the same after unplugging the memory and start PC;

c. Clear CMOS (possibly incorrect settings) or replace BIOS.

3. The motherboard cannot self-check successfully after booting

a. Press the "Del" key to reset the CMOS or clear the CMOS;

b. Replace the memory stick;

c. Refresh the BIOS or replace the same BIOS chip.

4. Mouse and keyboard cannot be used after booting

a. Check if the keyboard lock is locked and release the keyboard lock;

b. If not, check whether the connection between the I/O ports of keyboard and mouse are connected correctly;

c. Check whether there is a keyboard and mouse one-to-two adapter, if so, use the keyboard and mouse in reverse;

d. Replace one-to-two joints;

e. Replace the mouse and keyboard.

5. The mainboard self-test is successful after booting, but the system cannot be booted from the hard disk

a. Press the "Del" key to enter the CMOS hard disk parameter setting and whether the boot sequence is correct;

b. After booting with CD-ROM or floppy drive, check whether the hard disk has a boot system or whether the hard disk is partitioned normally and the boot partition has been activated;

c. Replace the hard disk with a new one and reinstall the system. 

6. The system crashes or a blue screen appears after booting

a. Check whether there is a conflict in system resources;

b. Check whether there is any error in the BIOS settings;

c. Replace the memory card;

d. Re-partition and format the hard disk to install the operating system. 

7. The windows system crashes or blue screen during the operating

a. Check whether the temperature of the industrial computer is too high;

b. Check whether the wrong or outdated driver is installed;

c. Check whether the system is infected with viruses;

d. Whether the CPU and power supply is working;

e. Whether system files or applications and disks are damaged;

f. Check if there is a problem with the memory or the memory is not compatible.

8. The device driver cannot be installed correctly

a. Check whether the driver is correct and up-to-date;

b. Whether the driver needs the support of the patch program of the operating system;

c. Whether it is conflict with the resources occupied by the other devices;

d. If it is a peripheral device, change a slot and reinstall the driver;

e. Replace the device and reinstall the driver.

9. The industrial computer works normally before shipping, but after arrive at customer side it has no display when power it on enter the operating system, and the monitor signal light keep flashing.

a. Generally, the resolution or refresh rate setting is high, on customer’s monitor, which causes display fail;

b. Enter the safe mode and set it again.

10. The booting time before entering operating system is too long

a. Turn off the auto-start item of the system startup file;

b. Run SCANDISK to check whether there are bad sectors on the disk;

c. Run Disk Defragmenter to remove fragmentation;

d. Run Disk Cleanup to remove junk files;

e. It may be related to the installation of the network card, adjust the network settings.

11. After booting up, motherboard self-check process normal but there no display

a. Check whether the monitor is properly connected to the host;

b. Insert another display card to see if it can display normally;

c. Clear CMOS (possibly set incorrectly) or replace BIOS;

d. Replace the CPU board (integrated graphics card on the motherboard) or monitor.

12. The analysis of the alarm sound after turn on the industrial PC

Type 1: Award's BIOS

1 short - the system starts normally

2 short - general error

1 long and 1 short - RAM or motherboard error

1 long 2 short - display or graphics card error

1 long and 3 short - keyboard controller error

1 long 9 short - Flash RAM or EPROM error (BIOS damage)

Uninterrupted long beep - the memory card is not inserted tightly or the memory is damaged

Repeated short beep - power failure

No sound, no display - power supply error

Type2: AMI BIOS alarm sound

1 short - Memory refresh problem

2 short - Memory synchronization check error

3 short - System base memory (First 64KB memory segment) check failed

4 short - System clock error

5 short - CPU error

6 short - keyboard controller 8024, A20 address line error

7 short - System real mode error, processor aborted

8 short - Graphics card disconnected / the graphics card is accessed incorrectly

9 short - ROM BIOS check error

10 short - CMOS shutdown scratchpad access error

11 short - External cache error

1 long and 3 short - Memory error

1 long and 8 short - the display data cable or graphics card is not plugged in properly

In addition to the above, we can encounter other various faults of IPC during operating, but as long as you follow the principles of industrial computer fault detection, problems can be known and solved easily : from simple to difficult, first analyze and then repair, check software and then hardware.