Booting problems...a little help please?

[sumrandomguy]

Hello, I have a situation at hand and would appreciate any feedback or comments.

Lately, my computer has some booting problems. When I press the power button, the computer powers on, but theres no signal to my monitor. When it boots up normally I can hear some "loading" noises, but when it doesn't boot up theres no noise at all, but its not like its dead.

I'm running an Intel P4 2.6C with HT. I have 2 optical drives, a CDRW and a DVD rom, and a floppy drive. In the BIOS settings, the default boot sequence is: floppy, hard drive, and then CDRW. IF I can get into the BIOS (sometimes I can't even get there cause nothing loads), I change the boot sequence and it might boot, and it might not. I fool around with it until it boots, but its starting to get annoying when I have to press and hold the power button on my computer to shut it down and then start it up again.

I've flashed my BIOS a few days ago, but I still get the same problem. I've basically applied all my computer knowledge (which isn't that much to start with) and I can't figure out whats wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Warlock]

Followng may be of interest, LINK (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/)

[ShadowVlican]

was the computer working fine before? what did you do to get it like this?

if you did nothing, maybe something died... the power grid isn't supplying nice electricity (there has been numerous short blackouts good enough to produce some spiked voltages...)

[Cafe_333]

Sounds like a hardware issue. One of the following candidates is likely the culprit: the video card, psu, cpu, or the mobo. One by one, swap each component out into another working system in that order - and let us know what happens. Remember, always swap components out, never in. This way you can determine if more than one component is a culprit and to prevent the risk of frying a good cpu if indeed the mobo is the culprit. Anyway, you can find the culprit this way by isolating the problem through testing each component one by one. If every component yeilds no success, I would conclude your mobo has gone bad.

When you find the problem, check the warranty to see if you can RMA it, otherwise purchase a replacement.

[sumrandomguy]

Thanks for the website Warlock. It seems to me that I meet the minimum recommended power. After checking off items from the list, it says I should have at least 250 watts and my current power supply is 350 watts.



was the computer working fine before? what did you do to get it like this?

if you did nothing, maybe something died... the power grid isn't supplying nice electricity (there has been numerous short blackouts good enough to produce some spiked voltages...)

The weird thing is that I haven't done anything to get it like this. It was always working fine. For the past few weeks I've been noticing it not booting properly. Also, sometimes the monitor flickers (all of a sudden goes black, then comes back on. Altho I have an LCD, its never happened in the past). Maybe the power supply is dying?



Sounds like a hardware issue. One of the following candidates is likely the culprit: the video card, psu, cpu, or the mobo. One by one, swap each component out into another working system in that order - and let us know what happens. Remember, always swap components out, never in. This way you can determine if more than one component is a culprit and to prevent the risk of frying a good cpu if indeed the mobo is the culprit. Anyway, you can find the culprit this way by isolating the problem through testing each component one by one. If every component yeilds no success, I would conclude your mobo has gone bad.

When you find the problem, check the warranty to see if you can RMA it, otherwise purchase a replacement.

This is the only computer in my house so its hard to swap each component into another computer. The video card probably isn't the problem because I just got it a while back (about 2 mths ago). My computer is now 2.5 yrs old, and when I opened the case I found quite a bit of dust on top of the cpu fan and underneath it as well. I cleaned the dust off the fan but didn't touch underneath because i'm not too sure how to put back the fan if I take it off. Do you think dust is the factor? In BIOS, it says the temp. of the CPU is around 30 degrees (give or take a degree or two). Is that normal? The rpm of the fan is quite steady between 2900 and 3000. Now that I think of it, it could be the motherboard thats dying. Sometimes it wont detect the mouse? (I have an optical mouse and the light isn't on when the computer is turned on. Its like I have a dead mouse.)

[ShadowVlican]

This is the only computer in my house so its hard to swap each component into another computer. The video card probably isn't the problem because I just got it a while back (about 2 mths ago). My computer is now 2.5 yrs old, and when I opened the case I found quite a bit of dust on top of the cpu fan and underneath it as well. I cleaned the dust off the fan but didn't touch underneath because i'm not too sure how to put back the fan if I take it off. Do you think dust is the factor? In BIOS, it says the temp. of the CPU is around 30 degrees (give or take a degree or two). Is that normal? The rpm of the fan is quite steady between 2900 and 3000. Now that I think of it, it could be the motherboard thats dying. Sometimes it wont detect the mouse? (I have an optical mouse and the light isn't on when the computer is turned on. Its like I have a dead mouse.)
dust can kill your computer...

30ºC for CPU temps seem too low for your comp.. maybe it IS ur motherboard....

[Cafe_333]

Well provided you have good ventillation and cool room temps, 30 degrees isn't that uncommon. I wouldn't worry about it too much. As for dust, it's not a major issue, but it can potentially lead to clogging problems in any system fans.

Since it is the only computer in the house, your only option from here is to get a computer hardware literate friend to troubleshoot the system for you, or to take it to your local computer dealer and have them determine the problem for a reasonable fee.

Unfortunately this is the best help anyone can ever offer since it's impossible to tell which is the actual culprit untill you can isolate the working components from the bad one through troubleshooting. Best of luck to you.

[sumrandomguy]

Thanks everyone for the input!