Hello to all, and I'm glad I found such a good forum. I'm hoping I can find someone to help me solve an issue. Thanks to anyone who can give me any feedback or suggestions.
I'll start from the beginning.
I had the problem on & off for 1-2 months, but seldom.
When the computer was turned on, it would go to the blue HP screen (press F1 for setup, F10 for recovery) and freeze on that screen. After turning it off and on a couple/few times it would come up ok. No problems once it was running.
Problem became more frequent, and did a restore back to before I remember the problem starting.
It got so I just wouldn't shut it off.
Then the other day my son turned it off and it won't come back up since.
What I've tried:
Tried to get it to boot with disk I got from the microsft site.
Also tried a boot disk made from winternals (ERD Commander)
I also tried to reboot from the HP's recovery disks.
I enabled the boot diagnostic screen to get rid of the blue screen. The post seems to go ok up to a point.
It recognizes my floppy, the HD and my CD RW and DVD Rom. After the CD RW the post sceen goes black & nothing happens.
If I start with a disk in the CD RW drive, it does the same thing, but the light for the drive stays on (permanently) I can here the drive spinning for about 15 seconds, and the light for the HD is on, but then the light goes out, the drive stays quiet, and the screen goes black. The fan stays running inside.
I can get into BIOS via F1 and I've tried all possible combinations in the boot priority menu.
I have disconnected all cables from the motherboard one at a time and together and tried to restart. I have pulled the CPU, checked and reseated it.
Nothing seems to work, or even change the results except:
When the memory card was out it wouldn't even come on and when the 3.5 floppy was disconnected it gives me a disk error.
Also I get no beeps during the startup.
My BIOS is Phoenix version 3.24
I listed my BIOS settings in a different thread. I will move 'em here in another post.
So, am I to understand that if I can access BIOS then my CPU is ok? Could it be a problem with the bios chip itself?
And does it sound like the POST is successful, or is it freezing towards the end?
And, if the BIOS is detecting the drives, why can't I get them to boot? It would seem to me that since I can hear the drives kick into action, then it's making it to the boot step, but something is going wrong at that point.
Sorry for all the questions, but I'm tring to brainstorn this. Any input would be a big help. And please ask any questions you need for clarification.
Oh one other thing, how should the jumpers be set on my drive(s) to make sure they are set up properly to boot from.
Thank you
Rusty
I'll start from the beginning.
I had the problem on & off for 1-2 months, but seldom.
When the computer was turned on, it would go to the blue HP screen (press F1 for setup, F10 for recovery) and freeze on that screen. After turning it off and on a couple/few times it would come up ok. No problems once it was running.
Problem became more frequent, and did a restore back to before I remember the problem starting.
It got so I just wouldn't shut it off.
Then the other day my son turned it off and it won't come back up since.
What I've tried:
Tried to get it to boot with disk I got from the microsft site.
Also tried a boot disk made from winternals (ERD Commander)
I also tried to reboot from the HP's recovery disks.
I enabled the boot diagnostic screen to get rid of the blue screen. The post seems to go ok up to a point.
It recognizes my floppy, the HD and my CD RW and DVD Rom. After the CD RW the post sceen goes black & nothing happens.
If I start with a disk in the CD RW drive, it does the same thing, but the light for the drive stays on (permanently) I can here the drive spinning for about 15 seconds, and the light for the HD is on, but then the light goes out, the drive stays quiet, and the screen goes black. The fan stays running inside.
I can get into BIOS via F1 and I've tried all possible combinations in the boot priority menu.
I have disconnected all cables from the motherboard one at a time and together and tried to restart. I have pulled the CPU, checked and reseated it.
Nothing seems to work, or even change the results except:
When the memory card was out it wouldn't even come on and when the 3.5 floppy was disconnected it gives me a disk error.
Also I get no beeps during the startup.
My BIOS is Phoenix version 3.24
I listed my BIOS settings in a different thread. I will move 'em here in another post.
So, am I to understand that if I can access BIOS then my CPU is ok? Could it be a problem with the bios chip itself?
And does it sound like the POST is successful, or is it freezing towards the end?
And, if the BIOS is detecting the drives, why can't I get them to boot? It would seem to me that since I can hear the drives kick into action, then it's making it to the boot step, but something is going wrong at that point.
Sorry for all the questions, but I'm tring to brainstorn this. Any input would be a big help. And please ask any questions you need for clarification.
Oh one other thing, how should the jumpers be set on my drive(s) to make sure they are set up properly to boot from.
Thank you
Rusty