BIOS 'Hanging'
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From: Jack Ouzzi on 3 Jun 2010 04:25 A friend has a PC which 'fails to boot' ... blank screen - nothing - power is OK and running. After a few attempts at the Delete and F keys whilst running & booting I eventually got into the BIOS .... however after a short while (checking settings) it hangs, then goes back to it's 'nothing' state. Hitting Delete and F keys during boot are only about 20% effective ..... its turn off and on again to restart the process .... I have also tried HD diagnostic software (Spinrite) but that loads into memory and also hangs ..... Managed to start XP installation with manufacturers rescue disks ... hangs Managed to install Linux Mint 8 (after 4 goes) but during boot up it hangs ..... Any possible ideas please??
From: root on 3 Jun 2010 05:57 Jack Ouzzi <mick.sturbes(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > A friend has a PC which 'fails to boot' ... blank screen - nothing - > power is OK and running. > After a few attempts at the Delete and F keys whilst running & > booting > I eventually got into the BIOS .... however after a short while > (checking settings) it hangs, then goes back to it's 'nothing' state. > Hitting Delete and F keys during boot are only about 20% > effective ..... its turn off and on again to restart the process .... > I have also tried HD diagnostic software (Spinrite) but that loads > into memory and also hangs ..... > Managed to start XP installation with manufacturers rescue disks ... > hangs > Managed to install Linux Mint 8 (after 4 goes) but during boot up it > hangs ..... > Any possible ideas please?? Disconnect the disk drives, remove all the cards except the graphics card and see if the machine will reliably start and get into the bios. If not the mother board is bad. If the MB is ok, then you can start adding stuff back and see what causes the problem.
From: Chris Whelan on 3 Jun 2010 06:08 On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:57:50 +0000, root wrote: > Jack Ouzzi <mick.sturbes(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> A friend has a PC which 'fails to boot' ... blank screen - nothing - >> power is OK and running. >> After a few attempts at the Delete and F keys whilst running & booting >> I eventually got into the BIOS .... however after a short while >> (checking settings) it hangs, then goes back to it's 'nothing' state. >> Hitting Delete and F keys during boot are only about 20% effective >> ..... its turn off and on again to restart the process .... I have also >> tried HD diagnostic software (Spinrite) but that loads into memory and >> also hangs ..... >> Managed to start XP installation with manufacturers rescue disks ... >> hangs >> Managed to install Linux Mint 8 (after 4 goes) but during boot up it >> hangs ..... >> Any possible ideas please?? > > Disconnect the disk drives, remove all the cards except the graphics > card and see if the machine will reliably start and get into the bios. > If not the mother board is bad. If the MB is ok, then you can start > adding stuff back and see what causes the problem. To which I would just suggest trying another PSU as a last resort. Chris -- Remove prejudice to reply.
From: Gordon Henderson on 3 Jun 2010 07:24 In article <a812fd02-56be-412e-bd8e-498b1ba59532(a)o15g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, Jack Ouzzi <mick.sturbes(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >A friend has a PC which 'fails to boot' ... blank screen - nothing - >power is OK and running. >After a few attempts at the Delete and F keys whilst running & >booting >I eventually got into the BIOS .... however after a short while >(checking settings) it hangs, then goes back to it's 'nothing' state. >Hitting Delete and F keys during boot are only about 20% >effective ..... its turn off and on again to restart the process .... >I have also tried HD diagnostic software (Spinrite) but that loads >into memory and also hangs ..... >Managed to start XP installation with manufacturers rescue disks ... >hangs >Managed to install Linux Mint 8 (after 4 goes) but during boot up it >hangs ..... >Any possible ideas please?? Issues I've seen like this have involved faulty IDE drives - which does "something" to the IDE bus/chips causing the BIOS to try to probe for them forever.. So unplug the drives - if they're IDE. You might also want to try a BIOS NVRAM reset - there's usully jumper on the board these days to do it - power down, unplug, remove the battery, move the jumper, count to 120, and reverse the procedure... Gordon
From: FP on 3 Jun 2010 08:14
On 03/06/2010 11:08, Chris Whelan wrote: > On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:57:50 +0000, root wrote: > >> Jack Ouzzi<mick.sturbes(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> A friend has a PC which 'fails to boot' ... blank screen - nothing - >>> power is OK and running. >>> After a few attempts at the Delete and F keys whilst running& booting >>> I eventually got into the BIOS .... however after a short while >>> (checking settings) it hangs, then goes back to it's 'nothing' state. >>> Hitting Delete and F keys during boot are only about 20% effective >>> ..... its turn off and on again to restart the process .... I have also >>> tried HD diagnostic software (Spinrite) but that loads into memory and >>> also hangs ..... >>> Managed to start XP installation with manufacturers rescue disks ... >>> hangs >>> Managed to install Linux Mint 8 (after 4 goes) but during boot up it >>> hangs ..... >>> Any possible ideas please?? >> >> Disconnect the disk drives, remove all the cards except the graphics >> card and see if the machine will reliably start and get into the bios. >> If not the mother board is bad. If the MB is ok, then you can start >> adding stuff back and see what causes the problem. > > To which I would just suggest trying another PSU as a last resort. He didn't mention RAM. If it powers up sometimes, but dies after a while then I would suspect PSU first, then RAM. Especially after the bit about the diagnostic loading into RAM and then the machine freezes -- one would hope that a HD diagnostic would report a faulty HD, not freeze the machine, so I'd have the drives lower down the list. So if it powers up reliably when you take the drives out, suspect the PSU (with the drives gone, the PSU may be able to cope). Otherwise, can you swap the RAM around? What sort of RAM is it? FP |