OT: PC boot problems

Everyone should use twin SSDs or hard disks. If one of mine fails (which it has) all I get is a notice on the screen saying "drive 2 failure". I just unplug it and put in another (without even switching off the computer), and the data is automatically copied across while I continue to use the computer as normal. You also get the benefit of double read speed.

I've got huge amounts of s*it loading, I'm not very tidy. But I have twin SSDs, so it's double speed. And an i5 3570K @ 3.8GHz. And a Radeon R9 290 graphics card for smooth high res games and scientific computing (look up "BOINC"). The setup's 3.5 years old but it's fast enough for me (I built it out of leftovers from when I ran a gaming computer business). Mind you, I probably start it up about once a month, it usually runs 24/7 doing something or other. I've got three other machines made out of spare parts I've been given.

I remember you once telling me you didn't need a fast computer. You have been converted.

Yes, several free broken machines makes lots of working stuff :-)

I ran the disk check on the SSD drive, no errors, nothing to fix. Also checked that the windows startup sound is enabled. It's probably not making the sound when the non-boot occurs, but it's one more thing I'll watch when it happens again. There were some HP diagnostics and I ran them for the MB, nothing found. I checked the settings and the boot sequence has a network boot as the last thing. So, looks like when it's trying to do that it couldn't find the SSD. But then as I reported, other times it just has a total blank screen when it tries to boot.

I also saw in the bios settings where there is an option to display checks on boot, I enabled that, so maybe I can see what's going on. I'll just keep an eye on it and pay close attention to what happens next time it fails.

Thanks to all for the tips.

Is the absence of the POST screen consistent or intermittent?

I would check a few more things. If the computer has a peripheral add-on video card, I would try pulling the card and reseating it.

Next, I would enter the bios and make sure that the default video subsystem is set to the above add-on card and not the on-the-motherboard video system.

It was consistent because the bios was set not to dispay them. Now that I changed that, it does display them. What happens when the problem occurs, IDK, because it happens occasionally and has not happened in the few times I rebooted it while fiddling.

I think I'll wait now until it happens again and see if the POST shows anything. Most interesting will be if it starts the tests at all.

If that SSD is bad and throwing a hot bit on the bus, POST won't even start. There will be a parity check on the first fetch from the BIOS in most MB designs.

Curious, you used to see the post screens but somehow the setting in the bios was changed to not show them? Does anyone else fiddle with your computer?

You can also verify the boot order of your storage devices in the bios. I would probably set it so the SSD is 1st in the boot order unless you find yourself booting from a flash drive or optical disc on a regular basis.

I've booted to a blank screen 3-4 times with my current computer. Hasn't happened in maybe 6 months. I took no action. I attribute it to the UEFI bios on my ASUS motherboard. It's shown other minor flakiness.

I didn't say I used to see the post screens. I never saw the detailed screen, it only came up with a brief HP msg, then booted. That's when it booted successfully. When having the problem it either went looking for a lan boot or just a black screen. Having changed the bios settings to display the post, it runs through a bunch of stuff, but it's so fast I can't really read what it's doing. When it has it's problem again, maybe it will be sitting there and showing something.

It's set to DVD, SSD, (forget next one), then LAN.

In the PC world, POST screens can be either basic or detailed. Any of the screens displayed in the pre-boot sequence are considered to be part of the POST.

Everything up to the point where an operating system boot-loader takes control, is part of the POST.