ACK! Help Moi por favor!

Drustwyn · Post by **Drustwyn** » November 13, 2003, 5:48 pm

Situation: I power my computer on.. and it turns on (the obvious hum).

However, it just stops there... The monitor doesn't turn on, system doesn't display text, drives don't boot, windows doesn't boot... Nothing happens for 3-5 minutes. The time it takes to even check the drives is getting longer and longer each cold boot. Then suddenly it boots and everything works fine.

I have ran anti-virus and virus-scan programs, but nothing shows. Also: If I restart the computer (from Windows), it boots perfectly.. The problem seems to be only from a cold boot.

Suggestions?

masteen · Post by **masteen** » November 13, 2003, 6:16 pm

Reinstall windows. Sounds like either something is screwy in the registry or maybe your BIOS got corrupted?

Of course, this is coming from a person who religiously formats his hard drives every 6-9 months.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » November 13, 2003, 9:00 pm

I had a problem a year or so ago that sounds very similar to that where the PC would take 3-5 minutes to get past the power on self test stuff and boot the operating system. Since it seemed to be hardware related as it was happening before any operating system was loaded, I started pulling devices off the IDE controllers one at a time to diagnose the root cause. It turns out the integrated electronics on my crappy DVD ROM drive were failing and causing the boot process to hang. Replacing that drive solved the problem.

I recommend pulling devices off the IDE controller cable one at a time to see if one of these is the source of the problem. Make sure the bios is set to auto recognize drives beforehand.

Drustwyn · Post by **Drustwyn** » November 13, 2003, 10:04 pm

Tenuvil wrote:I had a problem a year or so ago that sounds very similar to that where the PC would take 3-5 minutes to get past the power on self test stuff and boot the operating system. Since it seemed to be hardware related as it was happening before any operating system was loaded, I started pulling devices off the IDE controllers one at a time to diagnose the root cause. It turns out the integrated electronics on my crappy DVD ROM drive were failing and causing the boot process to hang. Replacing that drive solved the problem.

I recommend pulling devices off the IDE controller cable one at a time to see if one of these is the source of the problem. Make sure the bios is set to auto recognize drives beforehand.

GOOD CALL! Thanks a ton! Was my floppy drive. (I hope this fix isn't temp)

noel · Post by **noel** » November 13, 2003, 10:31 pm

When you get it up and running, make sure your motherboard BIOS and drivers are up to date, and if the problem persists, I'd think the power supply could/would be a potential problem. Hopefully it's just the floppy which is like $20.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » November 14, 2003, 1:51 pm

Drustwyn wrote:
Tenuvil wrote:I had a problem a year or so ago that sounds very similar to that where the PC would take 3-5 minutes to get past the power on self test stuff and boot the operating system. Since it seemed to be hardware related as it was happening before any operating system was loaded, I started pulling devices off the IDE controllers one at a time to diagnose the root cause. It turns out the integrated electronics on my crappy DVD ROM drive were failing and causing the boot process to hang. Replacing that drive solved the problem.

I recommend pulling devices off the IDE controller cable one at a time to see if one of these is the source of the problem. Make sure the bios is set to auto recognize drives beforehand.
GOOD CALL! Thanks a ton! Was my floppy drive. (I hope this fix isn't temp)

If the floppy light just stays on you have the cable in backwards.. most cables are "keyed" these days so you can't do that, but not all..

Drustwyn · Post by **Drustwyn** » November 14, 2003, 8:11 pm

Well.. my computer officially died.. up in smoke (literally). I tried a new power source today, but it just did the same thing.. but didn't even do the bios boot thing. gah..

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » November 15, 2003, 12:11 am

I have to clear the CMOS almost regularly on one of my really old machines. Basically it's the backup battery on your MB.

Kguku · Post by **Kguku** » November 15, 2003, 1:38 am

Drustwyn wrote:Well.. my computer officially died.. up in smoke (literally). I tried a new power source today, but it just did the same thing.. but didn't even do the bios boot thing. gah..

What is the make, model and year of the motherboard? It could be like mine and have a capacitor issue, if it's roughly about 2 years old or so, there was a batch of capacitors that came out then that went bad. I've been too lazy to fix mine. It blew one power supply, and then finally went snap crackle pop one day when I turned it on. XP2100+ just sitting there because i'm too lazy to go buy a new mobo

rhyae · Post by **rhyae** » December 4, 2003, 12:28 pm

I'm having a problem that sounds like this sorta. Started when I tried to load a new vid card, didnt work, took it out and put old back in, worked for a while then stopped booting up. I can get to bios menus, but not safe mode.
Then I started gutting it to check each thing one by one, only had vid card in, removed all other cards, and then disabled all boot ups but the CDROM, and started it to see if it would load it and it gave me a screen saying the diskette in A was bad. A is the floppy, which wasnt even enabled. Sound like bad floppy too?