why wont my pc boot up?

[David Rowland]

ok neil

I am guessing that you have something like "Insert Bootable Disk in and press any key"
it will be one of the following and I hope its not the last option :-

1: You have a CD in the drive, the computer is trying to boot (or a memory card plugged in that is pretending to be a boot disk)
2: Loose cable inside the case which has come undone from the harddrive to the mainboard.
3: A virus has attacked your computer and removed the boot sector. Not sure how u going to get out of this without someone watching over your shoulders
3: The startup harddrive drive has died, listen for unusual clicking noises or if the computer is not its normal humm level, the computer harddrive may have failed. This means your data maybe lost, however if you muck about too much then u could loose the lot. I suggest a decent computer engineer to have a look.

[David Rogers]

Is it even getting to the BIOS POST screen? Does the hard disk light do its usual thing, or is it always on / off.

If it’s all but dead, with nothing on the screen it sounds like the motherboard / bios is dead, but could be as simple as a loose power cable for the board. Try them first, at this stage, you’ve not got a lot to lose.

ps. If you have another computer, take the HDD out of the non-starter, change the jumper setting (wee black peg on drive) to SLAVE, and insert it into the other one – just use the cables from a CD rom as it’s a temporary job. Start it up, accept any changes for new hardware & back up all the files if you can!!

Obviously – scan for viruses.

Dave

[Neil Churchman]

Thanks for your help Dave.

The PC has its normal background humming noise but
there is no image or light at all on the screen.

The screen is OK as I have tried it on another PC.

I will try a loose connection from the hard drive inside the PC case.

thanks again Dave

[Neil Churchman]

David Rogers – thanks for your help too.

The lights are all doing their normal thing on the front
just no sign of life at all on the screen which I have proved
is working fine on another PC.

I’ll have a look inside and maybe try out your idea with the hard drive.

thanks for your help

Neil

[David Rowland]

ah. neil… no image.. i guess that means the monitor is showing nuffin’

Any beeps? (if internal speaker is present)
Reset button stuck in?

Something loose or power supply could be weak… hm… i think it is going to be a job of tracking it down, check that leads are in and cards are firmly down

[Robert Berwick]

All you need to get a computer to POST (Power On Self Test) is a CPU, Video Card and memory. (Plus a power supply and motherboard obviously) If any of those are faulty or missing you won’t get anything on your monitor. (And if your power supply is dead you won’t get anything at all!)

You could try swapping each of those components out in turn for a known working part.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Robert

[Mats Hindmo]

A problem with the motherboard or the graphiccard can cause this symptoms.

Problems with memory or maindrive should still get you the startup POST.

[Phill Fenton]

I’m no expert on PCs but it’s well worth making sure the PC is free of dust inside. I had an older PC that couldn’t recognise the mouse recently. A simple clean up inside and vacuum away of dust cured the problem 😀