Computer not starting

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Harelin, Oct 28, 2003.

  1. Harelin

    Harelin Guest

    I have a friend who is dealing with some issues with his computer right now, and I'd like to see if any of you could help. I'll copy and paste a couple of the posts off the thread in the forums these came from.

    --------
    Get this...when I turn it on, it sometimes doesn't even start up. The lights are on, but my monitor shows nothing. So I hold the button down and cold shutdown, then start it up again. The second time, the "beep" noise happens, and it boots up....into BIOS. I exit BIOS, and it works perfectly for as long as I want.

    This has happened about ten times in a row...not too big of a problem I guess, but just tedious.

    Any ideas?
    --------------

    Sounds like the BIOS isn't auto-configuring your system.

    When you turn on the computer, the first things that happens is a series of motherboard diagnostics, ensuring that everything is good, and autodetects and sets some configs. It seems it may not be recognizing something, or a new component may be causing the test/configuration to hang.
    When you restart your computer, it goes into setup, so you can fix whatever's wrong. Even if you don't change anything, you may be bypassing something, so the computer works when you get out of your BIOS Menu, but will error out again when you powerdown/restart.

    Install anything new lately?
    How long has it been going on?
    Is it intermitent?

    -----------------

    2 Long shots...

    1, check the CMOS clear jumper on your mobo. Make sure it's not set to clear all the time. Your manual will show you where it's at, or it should just be cleveryly labled CMOS CL.

    2, If you've exhausted other options, pickup a new cmos battery at your local battery place.

    Wierd things can happen if either of those are the problem, and the deal with the CMOS battery is, it's really hard to tell if there's ever anything wrong with it. It's rare that there is, but... funkier things have happened.
    -----------------------------

    Thanks bud, I'll check that out.

    No Waag, there's nothing new...it's been happening for a few days, straight, no breaks.
    -------------------

    It won't even start up now. The lights come on, the fans are whirring away, but there is no "beep!" and nothing actually boots up.

    I'm going to take the CMOS battery out and put it back in tomorrow morning. If that doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do...
     
  2. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    I'd look at a new CMOS battery as well. If that doesn't fix it, we'll take it from there.
     

Share This Page