My computer refuses to boot up all the way. Help!

[Heather]

Lately, my computer has been in the habit of not turning the monitor on when I turn on the tower. So then, I have to push and hold the on button until the *censored* thing turns off again... A few minutes later I do the same thing... over and over... Until it finally turns the monitor on... ONLY TO FREEZE ON START UP. Argh! It doesn't even get past the boot up screens into the desktop before it freezes...

It just started doing this one day outta the blue.

I've run virus scanners, spy/ad ware scanners, Norton Windoctor... It still insists that nothing is infected, broken, or missing.

I swear to god I'm going to smash this thing to little pieces.


Because... Once it finishes throwing it's little "I don't want to boot up" tantrums, and it's on... It's fine. Completely FINE.


The only clue as to what might be going on is that it incessantly turns on number lock as soon as it starts to boot up.  The floppy drive light does come on before it freezes up too.


It used to take only a few tries to get it to turn on, but today I've been trying since 10:30 AM and it's now 2:30 PM... and I've ad no luck in turning it on.

[MalikTous]

If this machine is over half a year old and has never been cleaned out, try that. Use a 25mm long bristle paintbrush, and remove the fans from your heatsinks for access to clean both the heatsinks and fan blades. Clean the entire mainboard and cards, including all chip heatsinks. Clean the case fans and their intakes and filters. Remove dust from inside the case. A small hand vacuum or a 20 to 30mm hose attached to a regular one is useful in collecting the dirt and dust, and a source of compressed air/gas can help loosen dirt, but be careful of static charge with that.

Finally unplug and disassemble the power supply. Clean the board and fan well.

Inspect the fans to verify that they all work. Check them for stiffness or sticking, excessive noise, and physical damage. Running each one with a 12v power source can serve as a check to trace down the source of a fan noise in a system. Include the power supply fan in this check. Stiff or noisy sleeve-bearing fans can sometimes be recovered with some 3-in-1 oil or similar lubricant, but often the best repair is to replace the bad fan with a new one.

Finally reassemble the components and system. It should work better.

The symptom sounds like the BIOS is hanging. Insure that your BIOS setting for 'Floppy seek' is off. You may wish to reload BIOS with 'failsafe' values and reboot, then re-enter BIOS and change the NumLock, floppy seek, and other settings. Also try running with the floppy disconnected and the controller off; if this results in normal startups, replace the defective floppy.

[dl65]

Heather .....How old is your pc.....? When is the last time you did a defrag ? What operating system are you running ? If you are certain the problem isnt as the result of some bug ......then its possible your machine is all clogged up .
Let us know

dl65  

[WaY_WeiRd]

My computer is very old. We got it in '99, I believe. I'm running Windows 98, and I just defragged it about two months ago using Norton Systemworks.

Here's what the computer says just before it freezes up (if I'm so lucky as to have to monitor turn on.)


Verifying DMI Pool Data.........
Starting Windows 98...

C:\> SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
C:\> SET CTSYN=C:\WINDOWS
C:\>C:\PROGRA~1\CREATIVE\SBLIVE\DOSDRV\SBINIT.COM

Creative SB16 Emulation Driver, version 3.07 copyright (c) 1996-1998, Creative Technology LTD., All rights reserved.

Creative Audio @ Port dc00, IRQ 3
Initialization Complete

C:\>
C:\>


_

[WaY_WeiRd]

Another thing is that, the computer will not post most of the time. When it does, is when it gets to that one stage of start up and freezes. When it starts up normally it beeps once and the monitor goes on. My computer is not beeping.


[EDIT]
I removed everything from the back except the power supply. The first time I turned it on after that it started up normally with it's one beep, and then series of other normal sounds. I then shut it off, and just to make sure, turned it on again.... And it did not start normally.
[/EDIT]

[dl65]

Heather .....Here's what I would try......first I would purchase a can of compressed duster ( air ) and with the power shut off ...open the side panels and blow out all the dust......and there could be a lot ......pay particular attention to the heat sink ( aluminun)  ....Blow all the dust off the fan blades...( use a nonmetalic object like a chop stick to prevent the blades from spinning while you blow away the dust) make sure to blow out the power supply well ( from the inside )
After you have all the dust removed .....close it back up and restart.....Now give n the machine is almost 5 years old you may wish to purge anything thats not being used or current .......Remember a computer never throws anything away.......it just moves it around to hidden files ........for example ...you could have 1000s of deleted Emails just sitting in the deleted file folder and so on ......The other thing you may wish to consider is .....doing a format of the Hard drive ( thats wiping it completely clean) and reloading the operating system . Should you choose to do this remember that everyrthing on there is lost .........all data and programs....

let us know how you make out ....

dl65  

[merlin]

more than likely a graphics card fault do you not if it an on board one?what happens to the monitor if you boot to safe mode f8 key on boot up..and when you have got this darn thing booted can you check the power options in the control panel....and all should be reading never.. and does your monitor have a drivers floppy with it..what make is the monitor and pc....and please be calm it not worth the heart failure..its just a tool...

[Heather]

I'll try cleaning it, but I doubt it'll help. The computer refuses to start at all now. I can't get the monitor to turn on at all, and when I do it freezes up pretty quickly.

[Raptor]

You would be suprised as to what an obstacle dust can form for a PC to function properly.

[Joleen]

I'm inclined to agree with Merlin on this one.  Have you recently installed a video card or maybe taken it out and put it back?  Is the video onboard or is it a card?

[Heather]

No, I have not done anything to it. This just came out of the blue. My dad is going to have to help me clean it and everything, so it could be a week or so until I know if cleaning it helps.

[chade]

Merlin and Joleen may be right here.  I've had a similar problem not that long ago.  It was the graphics card on it's way out - which was sometimes not allowing the monitor to turn on and sometimes was even causing a failure with bootup.  If you have a spare graphics card, this is well worth a try to solve your problem.

You had any progress since your last post?

[joseph]

hi all!
i also have the same problem as in recently i adjusted my BIOS setting to try to get more power out of my comp.....and then after that...it refuses to boot up at all!now it doesnt boot up at all but i can see all my fans and LEDs working, even my HD is spinning inside.....

help! could it be i fried my processor? or motherboard?
help pls!

[Raptor]

Post your question only once, next time.

Leave overclocking to experienced people.

Reset your BIOS by either taking out the battery for 10 seconds or using the Jumper.

[merlin]

This may apply to all posters of problems with the pcs can you supply us with the o/s<operating system> the make <model> the cpu intel/amd the hard drive make or gig  the ram sticks 32/64 etc  ddr sdram  the video card   self built or bought in a dime store

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And the size of your shoes and have you had your haircut and how old are you to  thios info will help us to respond to you......ok...