Bios/boot problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

Hello everyone.

I would appreciate some guidance with a problem I am having booting my
system. This has only started in the last month or so since I moved from one
house to another and set the computer up again when we were moved in. It was
packed up for about 2 months and is now in a colder location (basement) than
it was before (upstairs office). Here is what is happening:

When I power up the system appears (as far as I can tell from the panel
lights and noise) to start normally, but either nothing appears on the
screen or the initial boot screen appears and remains on the screen. When I
press the reset button everything goes well about 70 % of the time -- the
other 30% of the time two resets are required. Warm boots are no problem and
all my applications etc seem to work normally. The problem started
intermittently - it now happens every time I power on.

I have checked the connections to the mother board (IDE cables, floppy, CD
burner and PCI modem - I have integrated graphics, sound and NIC) and have
found no problems. The bios is AMI. The system is less than two years old
and is running Windows XP home. There are no viruses, trojans etc.

Does anyone have any ideas where I should go next in trying to diagnose this
problem. I am concerned that a major hardware failure of some sort is
imminent. Naturally, I have a current backup.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mike
 
Open the box, with the power off of course, and check for loose wires, both
signal wires and power wires. Some PC connectors are very tight, but others
are loose and could have been affected by the move. Vacuuming the insde of
the PC might also be a good idea. But, as always, be careful of static
electricity.
 
It could be moisture condensation, try to boot it and when
it does, leave it on for a day or two to dry out. While it
is on, run some troubleshooting and benchmark programs to
test the computer.
SiSoft Sandra is free, about a 10 MB download. It has a
"burn-in" module and other tests.




| Hello everyone.
|
| I would appreciate some guidance with a problem I am
having booting my
| system. This has only started in the last month or so
since I moved from one
| house to another and set the computer up again when we
were moved in. It was
| packed up for about 2 months and is now in a colder
location (basement) than
| it was before (upstairs office). Here is what is
happening:
|
| When I power up the system appears (as far as I can tell
from the panel
| lights and noise) to start normally, but either nothing
appears on the
| screen or the initial boot screen appears and remains on
the screen. When I
| press the reset button everything goes well about 70 % of
the time -- the
| other 30% of the time two resets are required. Warm boots
are no problem and
| all my applications etc seem to work normally. The problem
started
| intermittently - it now happens every time I power on.
|
| I have checked the connections to the mother board (IDE
cables, floppy, CD
| burner and PCI modem - I have integrated graphics, sound
and NIC) and have
| found no problems. The bios is AMI. The system is less
than two years old
| and is running Windows XP home. There are no viruses,
trojans etc.
|
| Does anyone have any ideas where I should go next in
trying to diagnose this
| problem. I am concerned that a major hardware failure of
some sort is
| imminent. Naturally, I have a current backup.
|
| Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
|
| Mike
|
|
|
 
I think it is probably the hard drive. If the bearings are getting a little
worn it probably comes up to speed slowly. Being packed up for two months
added to the problem. From a cold boot the drive is not up to speed when
Windows tries to load; if you reset it, the disk comes up to speed quicker
since it was just running. And that's why warm boots are OK. Is your hard
drive and BIOS SMART capable? Look in the BIOS to see if you can enable
SMART, it will do a check of the hard drive and give a report. Do this when
the computer is cold, such as being off for at least overnight.
 
Mike said:
Hello everyone.

I would appreciate some guidance with a problem I am having booting my
system. This has only started in the last month or so since I moved from one
house to another and set the computer up again when we were moved in. It was
packed up for about 2 months and is now in a colder location (basement) than
it was before (upstairs office). Here is what is happening:

When I power up the system appears (as far as I can tell from the panel
lights and noise) to start normally, but either nothing appears on the
screen or the initial boot screen appears and remains on the screen. When I
press the reset button everything goes well about 70 % of the time -- the
other 30% of the time two resets are required. Warm boots are no problem and
all my applications etc seem to work normally. The problem started
intermittently - it now happens every time I power on.

I have checked the connections to the mother board (IDE cables, floppy, CD
burner and PCI modem - I have integrated graphics, sound and NIC) and have
found no problems. The bios is AMI. The system is less than two years old
and is running Windows XP home. There are no viruses, trojans etc.

Does anyone have any ideas where I should go next in trying to diagnose this
problem. I am concerned that a major hardware failure of some sort is
imminent. Naturally, I have a current backup.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mike
Click to expand...
Thank you Bob, Jim and Steve. I am going to try all your suggestions -- they
make a lot of sense.

Hopefully, in return, I will be able to provide some suggestions if you
ever need to post here with a question.

Regards

Mike
 
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