System won’t startup

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I am helping a friend – his system won’t startup. When we powerup, all we get is a beep – lasts about 2 seconds, off for 2 seconds, on for two seconds. The monitor does not power up. When I turn the power on, the cd drive lights blink but nothing else. No BIOS message on the screen of any kind. Does this mean that the motherboard is gone?

Oops, I shut off the power and restarted it – the cd drive lights blink but then nothing – no beeping, nothing on the monitor. Tried that again and still absolutely nothing.

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Now when I try to start up the system, I get a continuous beep. Twice there was squiggly lines on the monitor but now nothing is there. But the monitor is getting a signal as the “green” light is on. Now there are squiggly lines on the monitor again. And there seems to be a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the monitor.. The continuous beep is still there.

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Hi Trebor. Definitely sounds like a hardware problem. Obvious stuff first- has the system been upgraded recently, or has the case been opened? Check all connections, makes sure all your cards & RAM are seated correctly in their slots, and if still no joy, try clearing the CMOS to reset the BIOS (See the motherboard manual for details on how to do this). If it’s still the same, you got a sick PC with hardware problems…

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Hi Trebor. Definitely sounds like a hardware problem. Obvious stuff first- has the system been upgraded recently, or has the case been opened? Check all connections, makes sure all your cards & RAM are seated correctly in their slots, and if still no joy, try clearing the CMOS to reset the BIOS (See the motherboard manual for details on how to do this). If it’s still the same, you got a sick PC with hardware problems…

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Now when I try to start up the system, I get a continuous beep. Twice there was squiggly lines on the monitor but now nothing is there. But the monitor is getting a signal as the “green” light is on. Now there are squiggly lines on the monitor again. And there seems to be a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the monitor.. The continuous beep is still there.

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It points to a possible MEMORY problem.
See if there is more than one memory stick installed. IF so remove all but one and try it. If still NG remove the one and install one of the others, etc. Process of elimination.
Depending on what BIOS you have you might decipher the POST beeps. They are different from each other.

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Hi Bob, There is only one memory card – a 256 MB. I pulled it and put in another from a different system. No luck. The beeping is sometimes intermittent and sometimes steady. I have pulled the only card in the system, a modem and reinserted it. I also made all the cable connections to be secure. The unit simply will not start up. As far as getting to the bios, no luck. I can’t even get it to boot up to a WIN 98 Boot disk. I think the motherboard has gone bad.

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Sounds like it might be. One last thing to try- clear the CMOS. Check the motherboard manual- it’s usually done by moving a jumper (not the woolly sort). If a setting in the BIOS has gone haywire, this will reset to ‘safe’ defaults. Note, this isn’t the same as trying to go into the BIOS and reset the settings.

One word of warning- don’t start moving jumpers about with the power lead still attached…

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Sounds like it might be. One last thing to try- clear the CMOS. Check the motherboard manual- it’s usually done by moving a jumper (not the woolly sort). If a setting in the BIOS has gone haywire, this will reset to ‘safe’ defaults. Note, this isn’t the same as trying to go into the BIOS and reset the settings.

One word of warning- don’t start moving jumpers about with the power lead still attached…

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Hi Bob, There is only one memory card – a 256 MB. I pulled it and put in another from a different system. No luck. The beeping is sometimes intermittent and sometimes steady. I have pulled the only card in the system, a modem and reinserted it. I also made all the cable connections to be secure. The unit simply will not start up. As far as getting to the bios, no luck. I can’t even get it to boot up to a WIN 98 Boot disk. I think the motherboard has gone bad.

Reply | Quote

It points to a possible MEMORY problem.
See if there is more than one memory stick installed. IF so remove all but one and try it. If still NG remove the one and install one of the others, etc. Process of elimination.
Depending on what BIOS you have you might decipher the POST beeps. They are different from each other.

Reply | Quote