OT: PC boot problems

[trader_4]

I have an HP I7 based PC that's about 5 years old. ABout a year ago, the hard drive failed and I opted to replace it with a solid state Flash drive. That went fine, really happy with how fast it's made it, especially booting up. All was well until recently. Now sometimes when I turn it on it boots normally. That's probably most of the time. Sometimes it comes up and is apparently trying to boot from a LAN, it spins around doing that for 15 secs or so, then it comes back with some Intel bootloader msg, then proceeds to boot up normally. That happens more rarely. And some of the time it doesn't do anything, just powers up, but I don't even see the Bios type boot, no msgs, just a black screen. I cycle it again, then it always boots normally.

Any ideas what's going on? The MB battery going, maybe? I can see how that would have it confused on where to boot from, but not account for the total black screen. Isn't that boot choice stuff in Flash now anyway? Any ideas?

[Brian]

As this is a recent development, I would bring up a command prompt and input the following command:

chkdsk c: /f

This will check your SSD for any file system errors and attempt to repair them.

You will need to reboot the system and the chkdsk will run before the Windows GUI loads.

If the problem persists after running chkdsk, there are a number of other things you can check.

[trader_4]

How would a disk problem prevent it from displaying the normal MB based startup screen? I've had all kinds of disk problems over the years, never saw one that caused a totally black screen. It's not a bad idea to run the check though, I'll do it when I get a chance.

[Brian]

A file system error would not prevent the POST screen from displaying. However, a problem with the boot sector of the drive could cause boot delay issues.

After you run the chkdsk, I would enter the BIOS / UEFI interface to ensure the machine is set to display the POST messages. You can also fully reset the CMOS bringing the BIOS / UEFI settings back to their defaults. You would look up the specific instructions for that machine to see which contacts on the mainboard should be jumpered / shorted out to reset the CMOS memory.

You could also have problems with RAM and other devices in the system that could cause erratic behavior during POST.

The CHKDSK suggestion is one of the easiest things to try first.

[trader_4]

That was my conclusion as well, which has me stumped.

Agree and I will check the disk.

Seems it must be because I see them when it boots normally. Or when it boots and goes into the mode with a spinning wheel and it looks like it's going out to a network to try to boot.

You can also

That's what has me worried. But once it comes up, which it does most times, it runs just fine, no unusual behavior.

Agree, I will do it.

[hubops]

< snips >

Sorry to jump the thread when I have nothing to offer - but .. I find it - weirdly quaint ? - in a good way - that the old DOS things still exist ! .. and are useful ! ... the last time I ran chkdsk was ~ 20 years ago. .. just thought of a vanity plate for the car .. C PROMPT John T.

[Iggy]

replying to trader_4, Iggy wrote: Yep, I'd side with the battery replacement. Also, run a virus scan (rootkit scan) and re-seat the ram after cleaning their contacts with isopropyl alcohol or a pencil eraser. You can also clean any expansion cards, video cards are notorious for bad MB connections causing phantom issues.

[Brian]

Another trick that frequently works is to shut the computer and monitor off, pull both power plugs for 30 seconds, plug them back in, check the video cable connections and power everything back on.

[Clare Snyder]

Get it booted up and clone the ssd to a rotating drive NOW. Sounds like the SSD is on it's way out

[Clare Snyder]

Unlikely in an "I" series machine. The counterfeit caps are long gone from the supply chain long before the "I" series processors and board hitthe market - and lots now use "solid" caps.

The bios is not finding the primary boot device on start-up. The primary boot device is the SSD, The SSD has "temporary amnesia". One of these times it will not boot AT ALL.

Clone it NOW.

[trader_4]

citor Plague" which has affected all sorts of electronic equipment. I had s ome computer motherboards fail because of electrolytic capacitors going bad . o_O

Assuming all that is true, why do I have a black screen on startup, instead of a typical boot failure screen? Also these new pcs monitor drive error rates, have a history of error s, etc., in fact the system warned me off th e previous hard-drive going bad. This drive works perfectly and if it was a drive issue, you'd expect a boot failure message, after the normal startup , not a black screen?

[Brian]

Any progress on this?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

No, they can become intermittent. In fact 50% of the time they'll do so. Sometimes you can repair them with a flash update, sometimes you just have to keep trying to get them to go, and copy off stuff quickly. Usually once you get one running it'll work until power off.

I've seen several OCZ drives fail completely and suddenly, and several Crucial drives work fine after a flash update.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

The black screen doesn't sound like a disk problem. Could be motherboard, processor, graphics card (the things required to make an image on the screen). Disks aren't even looked at until after the first display, and memory will usually just become slightly faulty and cause crashes.

[gfretwell]

If this connects through an IDE port, a bad SSD could screw up the bus.

[Clare Snyder]

But if the drive is failing and you do that - you are SCREWED!!!!

[Clare Snyder]

I've seen them get "flakey". Replaced then tried to re-format the "flakey" drive and it failed. ANY (digital) electronic device can fail in more than one way

[Clare Snyder]

It will if it is EUFI

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Wrong. Both can fail either way. I've seen plenty SSDs work every other time they're started up. And I've seen hard disks die suddenly when the heads collide with the platter. Any attempt to access the drive just makes very loud noises and no data is returned.

[Clare Snyder]

Most hard drivefailures I've experienced in the last 17 or so years of my 26 year computer carreer have been totally "silent" in nature - usually starting with an occaisional "drive not found" on startup, or a missing or scramb;ed file or folder when attempting to access.

Mechanical failures involving noises are getting more and more rare, particularly with "quality" drives.

SSD failures are similar in behaviour to ram failures (or memory sticks) which can be either slow death or instant failure. The "slow death" often goes basically un-noticed until it totally dies -