Help - no display on power up

[Wes Byers]

Hi,

I recently purchased an HP Pavilion 9694c series system for my kids to use.
The thing seems to have some s/w issues so I was on the verge of wiping the
system clean and reloading the default environment (Win98SE + all the
preloaded stuff). Last night my son powered up the system and it apparently
hung after the desktop appeared. He says he shutdown the system with
ctrl-alt-del, ctrl-alt-del. When I walked into the room he was unplugging
the power strip from the wall socket!

Now when I power on the system I don't get anything displayed on the
monitor, not even the BIOS splash screen. I have a black screen but the
power light on the monitor is a solid green. It sounds like the hard drive
spins up. The hard drive light comes on and stays on. The CD light blinks.

I have tried a number of things (some were my own doing and others were
suggested on the HP website and from email with HP tech support), all to no
avail. I would greatly appreciate some sage advice before I start replacing
parts (something I know little to nothing about) or junking the system.

Steps I've already taken :
1) Tried many more times. Required turning off the system with the on/off
switch.
2) Hooked the computer up to another monitor (easier than hooking monitor to
another computer.
3) I stuck a bootable floppy in the floppy drive and restarted the system.
It doesn't appear as though the floppy is being accessed.
4) Tried resetting the BIOS to default configuration. I'm not sure if this
worked because the instructions said to hit F1 after the keyboard turned on.
None of the keyboard lights come on when I power up so my timing may have
been off if the system ever got far enough to let me into setup. I tried
numerous times to try and cover the timing issue.
5) I disconnected the IDE cable from the hard drive, rebooted, shutdown,
reconnected the cable and booted again. While at it I also reseated the
video card and checked the IDE connectors on the motherboard and CD anbd DVD
drives.

I am assuming that I have a h/w problem but I'm not sure where to start. Is
it the BIOS? If so, can I replace just the BIOS? Could the power supply be
the culprit? If so, that would mean that it still powers some components but
not others. Is this possible? Thanks in advance.

-- Wes

[G]

So the cdrom led blinks so it has power - confirm this by pushing the tray
button, does it open and close? the hd led stays on so the mobo is getting
power - but I would confirm this by checking for any fans spinning inside
the case. What about the power supply's fan? Is it spinning? If all
components seem to be getting power, check all connections again, especially
video and mobo power connections. Disconnect everything else, and pull all
pci cards except for video. You want a bare minimum box to troubleshoot this
problem. Could be a bad video card, do you have a spare? If it is a pci
card and not agp, try another slot.

I doubt it is bios related because you would still see something or get a
beep or two even if the bios was corrupted. Although, modern bioses will
usually give you a beep code if it cannot detect a working video card. So,
that makes me think it could also be a bad mobo.

"Wes Byers" <wcbyers@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:A3y0b.100920$5J3.19756@news02.roc.ny... Hi, I recently purchased an HP Pavilion 9694c series system for my kids to
use. The thing seems to have some s/w issues so I was on the verge of wiping
the system clean and reloading the default environment (Win98SE + all the preloaded stuff). Last night my son powered up the system and it
apparently hung after the desktop appeared. He says he shutdown the system with ctrl-alt-del, ctrl-alt-del. When I walked into the room he was unplugging the power strip from the wall socket! Now when I power on the system I don't get anything displayed on the monitor, not even the BIOS splash screen. I have a black screen but the power light on the monitor is a solid green. It sounds like the hard drive spins up. The hard drive light comes on and stays on. The CD light blinks. I have tried a number of things (some were my own doing and others were suggested on the HP website and from email with HP tech support), all to
no avail. I would greatly appreciate some sage advice before I start
replacing parts (something I know little to nothing about) or junking the system. Steps I've already taken : 1) Tried many more times. Required turning off the system with the on/off switch. 2) Hooked the computer up to another monitor (easier than hooking monitor
to another computer. 3) I stuck a bootable floppy in the floppy drive and restarted the system. It doesn't appear as though the floppy is being accessed. 4) Tried resetting the BIOS to default configuration. I'm not sure if this worked because the instructions said to hit F1 after the keyboard turned
on. None of the keyboard lights come on when I power up so my timing may have been off if the system ever got far enough to let me into setup. I tried numerous times to try and cover the timing issue. 5) I disconnected the IDE cable from the hard drive, rebooted, shutdown, reconnected the cable and booted again. While at it I also reseated the video card and checked the IDE connectors on the motherboard and CD anbd
DVD drives. I am assuming that I have a h/w problem but I'm not sure where to start.
Is it the BIOS? If so, can I replace just the BIOS? Could the power supply be the culprit? If so, that would mean that it still powers some components
but not others. Is this possible? Thanks in advance. -- Wes

[Wes Byers]

Thanks for your response.

Yes. The cdrom tray opens and closes. Both the ps fan and cpu cooling fan
are spinning.

I disconnected everything and removed all but the video card. I reconnected
the mobo power, the hard drive power and the hard drive IDE cable. When I
powered it on I got video - the HP splash screen and then standard startup
messages. There was one error message "CMOS checksum bad - using default
configuration". After that I went into setup. I didn't change anything, but
while in setup the system hung (lost keyboard response, still had video). I
powered the system off and back on. Back to nothing. The hard drive is
spinning but the light is not on (I did not check to see if it was on when
the system started to work so I don't know if this is significant). I
repeated process of disconnecting and reconnecting everything, still to no
avail. Back to where I was, but it looks like the video card is okay(??).


"G" <nospam@hatespam.com> wrote in message news:3f43bf55@shknews01... So the cdrom led blinks so it has power - confirm this by pushing the tray button, does it open and close? the hd led stays on so the mobo is
getting power - but I would confirm this by checking for any fans spinning inside the case. What about the power supply's fan? Is it spinning? If all components seem to be getting power, check all connections again,
especially video and mobo power connections. Disconnect everything else, and pull
all pci cards except for video. You want a bare minimum box to troubleshoot
this problem. Could be a bad video card, do you have a spare? If it is a pci card and not agp, try another slot. I doubt it is bios related because you would still see something or get a beep or two even if the bios was corrupted. Although, modern bioses will usually give you a beep code if it cannot detect a working video card.
So, that makes me think it could also be a bad mobo. "Wes Byers" <wcbyers@frontiernet.net> wrote in message news:A3y0b.100920$5J3.19756@news02.roc.ny... Hi, I recently purchased an HP Pavilion 9694c series system for my kids to use. The thing seems to have some s/w issues so I was on the verge of wiping the system clean and reloading the default environment (Win98SE + all the preloaded stuff). Last night my son powered up the system and it apparently hung after the desktop appeared. He says he shutdown the system with ctrl-alt-del, ctrl-alt-del. When I walked into the room he was
unplugging the power strip from the wall socket! Now when I power on the system I don't get anything displayed on the monitor, not even the BIOS splash screen. I have a black screen but the power light on the monitor is a solid green. It sounds like the hard
drive spins up. The hard drive light comes on and stays on. The CD light
blinks. I have tried a number of things (some were my own doing and others were suggested on the HP website and from email with HP tech support), all to no avail. I would greatly appreciate some sage advice before I start replacing parts (something I know little to nothing about) or junking the system. Steps I've already taken : 1) Tried many more times. Required turning off the system with the
on/off switch. 2) Hooked the computer up to another monitor (easier than hooking
monitor to another computer. 3) I stuck a bootable floppy in the floppy drive and restarted the
system. It doesn't appear as though the floppy is being accessed. 4) Tried resetting the BIOS to default configuration. I'm not sure if
this worked because the instructions said to hit F1 after the keyboard turned on. None of the keyboard lights come on when I power up so my timing may
have been off if the system ever got far enough to let me into setup. I tried numerous times to try and cover the timing issue. 5) I disconnected the IDE cable from the hard drive, rebooted, shutdown, reconnected the cable and booted again. While at it I also reseated the video card and checked the IDE connectors on the motherboard and CD anbd DVD drives. I am assuming that I have a h/w problem but I'm not sure where to start. Is it the BIOS? If so, can I replace just the BIOS? Could the power supply
be the culprit? If so, that would mean that it still powers some components but not others. Is this possible? Thanks in advance. -- Wes

[G]

OK, so we've narrowed it down to a few possibilities. Again, disconnect
everything except for the video card. That includes the hard drive! If the
bios is having difficulty recognizing the hard drive, it could hang. So, a
possibility is that you have a bad controller board on the hard drive
causing the bios to freak out, and by disconnecting it from the system
entirely, you will know if it is the culprit. I really don't think that is
your problem though because of the lack of video (bad hard drive wouldn't
cause that).
If it still doesn't show video at all, I would suspect again the video card
or the mobo. Since a spare video card is cheaper (you can pick up a cheapo
pci card at a computer recycler just for testing purposes for a few bucks)
than a new mobo, I would try that first. Even better, if you could put the
video card into another computer to test it....?. You don't even need to
boot it all the way and install the driver and everything, just see if the
bios will display, then shut the computer off again.

"Wes Byers" <wcbyers@frontiernet.net> wrote in message
news:daW0b.102168$6e3.19464@news02.roc.ny... Thanks for your response. Yes. The cdrom tray opens and closes. Both the ps fan and cpu cooling fan are spinning. I disconnected everything and removed all but the video card. I
reconnected the mobo power, the hard drive power and the hard drive IDE cable. When I powered it on I got video - the HP splash screen and then standard startup messages. There was one error message "CMOS checksum bad - using default configuration". After that I went into setup. I didn't change anything,
but while in setup the system hung (lost keyboard response, still had video).
I powered the system off and back on. Back to nothing. The hard drive is spinning but the light is not on (I did not check to see if it was on when the system started to work so I don't know if this is significant). I repeated process of disconnecting and reconnecting everything, still to no avail. Back to where I was, but it looks like the video card is okay(??). "G" <nospam@hatespam.com> wrote in message news:3f43bf55@shknews01... So the cdrom led blinks so it has power - confirm this by pushing the
tray button, does it open and close? the hd led stays on so the mobo is getting power - but I would confirm this by checking for any fans spinning
inside the case. What about the power supply's fan? Is it spinning? If all components seem to be getting power, check all connections again, especially video and mobo power connections. Disconnect everything else, and pull all pci cards except for video. You want a bare minimum box to troubleshoot this problem. Could be a bad video card, do you have a spare? If it is a
pci card and not agp, try another slot. I doubt it is bios related because you would still see something or get
a beep or two even if the bios was corrupted. Although, modern bioses
will usually give you a beep code if it cannot detect a working video card. So, that makes me think it could also be a bad mobo. "Wes Byers" <wcbyers@frontiernet.net> wrote in message news:A3y0b.100920$5J3.19756@news02.roc.ny... Hi, I recently purchased an HP Pavilion 9694c series system for my kids to use. The thing seems to have some s/w issues so I was on the verge of
wiping the system clean and reloading the default environment (Win98SE + all the preloaded stuff). Last night my son powered up the system and it apparently hung after the desktop appeared. He says he shutdown the system with ctrl-alt-del, ctrl-alt-del. When I walked into the room he was unplugging the power strip from the wall socket! Now when I power on the system I don't get anything displayed on the monitor, not even the BIOS splash screen. I have a black screen but
the power light on the monitor is a solid green. It sounds like the hard drive spins up. The hard drive light comes on and stays on. The CD light blinks. I have tried a number of things (some were my own doing and others
were suggested on the HP website and from email with HP tech support), all
to no avail. I would greatly appreciate some sage advice before I start replacing parts (something I know little to nothing about) or junking the
system. Steps I've already taken : 1) Tried many more times. Required turning off the system with the on/off switch. 2) Hooked the computer up to another monitor (easier than hooking monitor to another computer. 3) I stuck a bootable floppy in the floppy drive and restarted the system. It doesn't appear as though the floppy is being accessed. 4) Tried resetting the BIOS to default configuration. I'm not sure if this worked because the instructions said to hit F1 after the keyboard
turned on. None of the keyboard lights come on when I power up so my timing may have been off if the system ever got far enough to let me into setup. I
tried numerous times to try and cover the timing issue. 5) I disconnected the IDE cable from the hard drive, rebooted,
shutdown, reconnected the cable and booted again. While at it I also reseated
the video card and checked the IDE connectors on the motherboard and CD
anbd DVD drives. I am assuming that I have a h/w problem but I'm not sure where to
start. Is it the BIOS? If so, can I replace just the BIOS? Could the power
supply be the culprit? If so, that would mean that it still powers some
components but not others. Is this possible? Thanks in advance. -- Wes

[budgie]

Just a shot in the dark - the mobo doesn't happen to have on-board
video clashing with a plug-in video card?

[Yamin]

[snip]

Hey Wes,

Strange indeed as the same thing happened to me. My computer just 'died' on
me. Nothing would show up. I took it in and all the guy did was reflash
the bios and its fixed. Not sure if that's the same as ur problem, but that
was mine.

my symptons:
- cd-rom/hd lEDS blink
-Fans turn appropriately
-monitor turned on and worked (its one of those that has its own
'screensaver' that shows 3 stripes (R,G,B) and sayd the monitor is okay
- nothing shows up on boot, not even the memory counter

What I suspect is somehow my bios got corrupted. Either by some kind of
electical surge or something. I don't know how he flashed the bios again
since the floppy was donw, but that's my question posted above.

Yamin

[K a h K e e N a n g]

"Yamin" <absdfsd@sdfdasfsd.com> wrote in message
news:nlR2b.5545$nw3.200117@news20.bellglobal.com... [snip] Hey Wes, Strange indeed as the same thing happened to me. My computer just 'died'
on me. Nothing would show up. I took it in and all the guy did was reflash the bios and its fixed. Not sure if that's the same as ur problem, but
that was mine. my symptons: - cd-rom/hd lEDS blink -Fans turn appropriately -monitor turned on and worked (its one of those that has its own 'screensaver' that shows 3 stripes (R,G,B) and sayd the monitor is okay - nothing shows up on boot, not even the memory counter What I suspect is somehow my bios got corrupted. Either by some kind of electical surge or something. I don't know how he flashed the bios again since the floppy was donw, but that's my question posted above. Yamin

I've experienced this similar inability to boot up with my older mobo, after
trying out to resolve this problem with first changing my PSU, to CPU and
eventually, only cure to it was a total overall upgrade motherboard which
solved all my mystery..what a total waste of my effort and time.