Computer sometimes doesn’t start!

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Hi,
I have a developing problem with my computer. Increasingly the computer is failing to start. When I press the start button the power light comes on OK, the fans start, the hard drive starts, the DVD Rom light flashes once, then….nothing.

I then turn the computer off with the main switch on the back, then back on and retry. I sometimes have to do this 6 or 7 times before the computer eventually starts OK. I can tell it’s going to start properly as the light on the DVD Rom flashes once, them pauses and then flashes a few more times and off we go!

What on earth is causing this?

Switch? Relay? Power Source? Motherboard? Help?

Thanks in anticipation,

Jimmy.

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Welcome to the Lounge!

Unfortunately, you did not mention your computer (motherboard) make and model, and I can give you only general suggestions.

Usually intermediate POST (Power On Self Test) failure is the sign of BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) problem. However, the cause of the problem can be different: for example, loose electric contact. Open your computer chassis and remove the dust. Carefully blow CPU (Central Processor Unit) fan and power supply with compressed air. Make sure that all cable connectors are firmly inserted into their sockets. Remove and put back RAM (Random Access Memory) sticks.

If it does not solve your problem, try to update BIOS (check your motherboard vendor website for the latest BIOS update).

If nothing helps, the lifespan of your computer is reaching the end…

Good luck!

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Thanks! I have already cleaned the inside of the chassis. One of the fans was noisy and I though that might have been the problem. The fan is now quiet and the inside of the computer is immaculate.

The motherboard is: Leadtek Research WinFast nVidia CR18D/G. There are two banks of RAM (2×256). The computer is 4 years old and was manufactured by Carerra.

The odd thing is the intermittancy of the problem. Like a Computer startup lottery!

I’ll pop back inside the case and give everything a good wiggle!

Jimmy.

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Jimmy,
Kaplinb’s post sounds like the voice of doom.

His suggestion of checking the memory is a viable one. If you have more than one memory stick, I would try to pull out all but one and try to boot. If still NG, power off and pull the original stick out and replace it with one of the others. Reboot.

You could also try to disable the DVD player and see if it makes a difference.

I don’t think a BIOS update will do much good for you.

By the process of elimination, you may be able to pin the problem down to a more specific area. Remove all add on cards except the video card, rebooting, etc. and by adding one at a time, you may see some pointer to a potential trouble.

Try some of these and post back.

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OK. Been inside, removed and replaced RAMs and checked all connections. Found a dicey connection to the floppy drive?

Anyway, the computer restarted fine, first time. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that much at this stage as the computer sometimes started first time before, especially when it had only been off for a short time.

I have SiSoft Sandra 2004 which is a useful tool. One thing it keeps telling me is that the ‘Main Board is running at too high a temperature. Currently 255C! I think this is nonsense. Anybody know how to check if this reading is valid.

I’ll check for an updated BIOS for the board.

More ideas welcome, I’m listening.

Jimmy

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Jimmy,
Follow my suggestions for stripping the system down to minimum and gradually adding components. Also, use the substitution method of trying ONE RAM stick at a time.

BTW, if your system was REALLY running at 255 C., you would be calling out the Fire Department to fix your computer!

SiSoft Sandra 2004 is a little outdated for practical use. A better one is SYSTEM INFORMATION It’s

Look under Hardware>sensors for temp info.

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You also might want to go into the BIOS settings to see what the boot order is. If you have a dicey floppy and it is first in the boot order, then it could give you grief as you describe.

Best boot order is HHD 0 first, CDROM second, floppy, third.

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New BIOS update is only a little younger than the existing one and I’m a bit wary about which one to use and how to install it. I’ll leave it just now.

The startup Boot order is HDD, DVD Rom, Floppy. This, however fits nicely with what may have been happening, as the HDD started, the DVD Rom flashed once then…..nothing. ie the floppy not kicking in.

Anyway, we’ll suck it and see.

I downloaded that SIW utility and there doesn’t actually seem to be a mainboard temperature sensor installed.

Thanks for now!

Jimmy

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Nope. That didn’t fix it. There is a light on the front of the DVD rom. OK. When I press the start button:

The power light comes on.
The HDD starts up.
The light on the front of the DVD Rom flashes once.
Then nothing.

Do it again and instead of the DVD Rom light flashing only once and stopping, it flashes once, slight pause, then flashes twice and away we go.

Could this be the DVD Rom at fault. How do I check this? Can I take it out of the startup sequence and see if that helps? I also have a DVD RW built in so I couild use it instaed for booting up. Help! I frightened that it won’t start at all one of these times and I’ll be in deep doo doo.

Thanks,

Jimmy

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When you say “nothing” happens….. can I assume that you mean that you see nothing on your Monitor?

Have you considered that the video card or onboard video may be at fault? If you are using a video card, try another. You don’t have to install drivers for it to test it, just plug it in and bootup. I’ve also seen monitors which are flakey like what you describe too. But I would first look at the “video” as suspect since you said all the fans, drives and HDD(s) are running when you power on the system.

Jeff

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It sounds to me like you’ve got yourself a good strategy planned, except that the first thing I’d try as a tweak is to change the BIOS boot order. Maybe if you put the DVD first, then the HDD, then the floppy, it might jerk the machine to attention! Failing that, I do think you’re right to take the DVD out of the startup sequence to see if THAT helps. All of the above are certainly worth trying before you make any other major decisions. It sounds like you’ve already eliminated a lot with the cleaning, connections stuff you’ve done.

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Pretty sure the video card is OK. It’s prior to that that things go wrong.
Never messed about in the BIOS before, so not sure what to do! How do I get into the BIOS? A talk through would be helpful.

Ta,

Jimmy

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I’m not familiar with your motherboard and what BIOS it has, but usually when you first boot the computer, there will be a somewhat quick message on the screen for which key to press to “enter” the BIOS screens. On many PCs it’s F2, F12, Del but you’ll have to watch for yours. When you enter the BIOS, I think the most important first thing to do is READ the initial screen for the layout of which keys to press to navigate around in there AND which keys will actually CHANGE items in the BIOS! You don’t want to accidently change something unintended.

After that, you’ll have to examine where the boot order might be and navigate to that screen. It’s often called simply “Boot” or something similar. When you find that screen, there’s usually a keystroke that will move items up or down in the boot order as well as (hopefully) something to disable or turn off one or more of the hardware items.

This whole thing is a bit of an unusual situation, for most of us like to have the boot order set to CD, floppy and then hard drive. I’m suggesting that you try putting the HDD first simply to see if it cures your immediate problem. It’s not desirable in the event that you need to boot the computer with a CD, but it might “flag” the fact that there is a problem with your particular DVD drive and then THAT could be worked on, like updated drivers or whatever. Keep us posted…

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Thanks Al! I’ll have a go! Cross your fingers…..

Jimmy

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Jimmy wrote:
Pretty sure the video card is OK. It’s prior to that that things go wrong.

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Again, IF <——— your monitor shows nothing but a blank (black) screen on bootup, then your video must remain suspect.

Another item, I believe already mentioned is RAM. You can test your RAM using either Mem86 (click on Free Download) or Microsoft Online Crash Analysis (another excellent free memory tester).

Jeff

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The video card is fine. It’s during the boot sequence that things go wrong. As soon as the computer starts the boot process properly the video is fine. It’s just getting past the DVD Rom that’s the problem.

I swapped the BIOS boot settings a round and the computer still stumbled at the DVD Rom bit. But only once. I’ll try it a while like this then perhaps try and remove the DVD from the boot sequence altogether.

Thanks, though, for your input.

Jimmy

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It sure is beginning to sound to me like there’s a “problem” with the DVD device, Jimmy. I sure hope if it turns out to be so, that you’ll be able to “fix” it with some updated drivers or an email to the manufacturer. Good luck and keep writing…

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Now that I’ve played around a bit with it I’m starting to realise that this has nothing to do with the boot sequence, but more to do with the ‘Power Up’ BEFORE the boot sequence starts.

I actually removed the DVD from the Boot sequence altogether but it is still the first thing that lights up after the power button is pressed. It’s at this point, within a second of pressing the power button that things either start up (yay!) or it all stops (boo!).

Any help?

I ran the Microsoft RAM test DooDah and all is well.

Jimmy

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Jimmy,
Below are two links to troubleshooting XP startup problems and what to check. The first from Microsoft, the second from the Labmice site. A lot of reading and points to check, some of which you have already tried via suggestions from the posts here.

Plug away at them. There are quite a few.

MICROSOFT

LABMICE

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Hereby admitting that I haven’t (yet) taken the time to look at the links that Viking provided, I have to wonder if it isn’t time to completely disconnect that DVD device to see if the boot problem goes away. On the other hand, maybe you want to check for possible updated drivers first.

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Thanks guys. It isn’t an XP problem in any way. If the computer can just get past the first few seconds on Power Up then everything boots fine. I do think that disconnecting the DVD would be interesting to try! I don’t really use it very often anyway as I have a DVD RW installed too.

I’ll get back t’ya.

Jimmy

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I was away a few days so couldn’t chime in earlier.
I’m having the exact same problem with starting up the 4 1/2 year old computer. One of our Tech guys suggested that the Bios battery was at the end of its life and had to be replaced. After I did that, things indeed changed for the better, but only for a day or two. Then the problem happened again. So that wasn’t the culprit after all.
Another Tech guy now suggests that it might be the Power Supply Unit. Haven’t tested that yet; I don’t have another PSU available at the moment. And because I decided to buy a new box this summer, it’s not high on my priority list. But I’m very much interested if you discover the cause of this problem.

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Hi Jan,

Seems to have pretty much fixed itself at the moment! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with something like the PSU or the BIOS battery. It’s something like that. I checked the Voltages whilst I was bumping about in the BIOS settings and they seemed OK. (I think?)

Anyway, it seems to have settled down just now, but I’ll keep this thread going until I find the solution….
Thanks,

Jimmy

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Additional info I forgot to mention yesterday: occasionally, after a few tries, the PC starts up in the BIOS screen stating that the CPU speed wasn’t valid on startup. But it invariably shows the correct speed… This happens maybe 1 out of 10 times I do a cold boot of the PC.

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Haven’t had that yet!

Jimmy

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Things are getting a bit worse!

The malady has changed a bit. The computer still doesn’t start every time, but now, when it does start, it goes to the ‘Welcome’ screen, I type in my password and the computer loads my settings, the Desktop appears and….then the computer loses video output. Only sometimes though. It is working OK now and is perfectly stable. It doesn’t shut down, it just loses video output.

Does someone know if this could be a PSU problem, or perhaps some kind of battery problem? Can I tell what the readings for voltage outputs in the BIOS mean? I still don’t think it’s a Graphics Card fault…..unless someone knows different!

Help!

Jimmy

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Jimmy,
The more you describe your on going symptoms, the more it does sound like a Video Card problem.
Do you have or can you borrow a substitute video card to plug in to try?
Or might your Motherboard have a built in video capability that you can enable temporarily after you unplug your add on card?

Substitution is always better than taking a SWAG at it. ( Scientific Wild A– Guess )

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The big problem with subbing the video card or, even worse, using the onboard excuse for graphics is that this is such an intermittant fault it’s hard to scientific at all. I’ll consider upgrading my ageing Video Card anyway and see if that does it. At least I’ll get faster graphics even it doesn’t fix the problem.

Am I to assume that there are no batteries anywhere in the computer that may need replacing?

Jimmy

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The only battery in a desktop would be the BIOS battery on the motherboard. This is the small battery used to hold the settings made to the system BIOS. Looks like a round, flat shiny disc a little smaller than a quarter. I don’t think that is your problem.

Any other battery might be if you use a wireless mouse or keyboard. Again not your problem maker.

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Ordered a new Graphics Card yesterday. GeForce 7300 GS. Mid priced unit that should knock the socks off my old FX5200. Fingers crossed!

Jimmy

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