Computer Hangs at BIOS Screen

Hi Folks,

My wifes computer (the problem child) is a 5 year or so old Dell Vostro 410 that has been running just fine recently, up to now.  I had replaced the video board a couple of month ago though.  This afternoon the computer hung on her and upon restarting, just came up to the BIOS screen and would not go any further.  The HD indicator stays on as well.  When I attempt to get into setup (F2) or Boot (F12), it does give me a message that it is loading, but never moves off of the initial BIOS screen.

Hoping someone on here might have some ideas on what I can attempt to get this computer back working again, it would be greatly appreciated!  I've attached the latest DX DIAG file I captured on her computer from back in November.

Thanks, Bob

I am unclear if you can actually enter your bios, can you get in there ?

The usual checks are temperature (with luck shown in the bios if it can be entered), so what state was inside the case when you put the card in ?

If there is a lot of dust etc, then a good clean out will do it a lot of good, also cables, make sure they are as tidy as possible so there is good airflow inside the case.

Next is ram, if you have more than 1 stick, try removing all but 1 stick (keep them in the same slot order incase they are matched pairs), try each stick 1 at a time and see what that shows up, if a specific stick always fails to boot it's possibly turned faulty.

Power, if the PSU has started to fail, it's possible it's not supplying enough current to a part that needs it, so if you have access to a meter, it wouldn't hurt to check that it is within the allowed tolerances.

Have you tried safe mode at all ?

Just wondering if you can access the safe mode option, if it would allow you to boot that way, but from looking down that list I am wondering about infection as I saw a mention of browsersafeguard.exe, which looks like it is looked down upon by many, can you recall what (if anything) changed just before this happened, also unplug ALL non essential devices from the system and see if that helps, if a USB device has gone bad or something that may be a factor, see if anything here gives any info.

8210,  Thanks for your response…  No, I cannot get into the BIOS at all, the computer just stays on that screen no matter what.  Did pop the cover off and everything seemed to be in fine shape.  I had previously back in November given it a good vacuuming out and it is still virtually dust-free.

I'll get back into it again to do the RAM checks and will also remove all external devices except for the mouse and keyboard.

As far as what happened, my wife now tells me that my son was on the computer playing Minecraft that also uses another application called Steam so he can communicate with his Minecraft buddies.  He says that he was just playing the game normally when the whole thing just froze.  He said he waited about 5 minutes to see if it was going to recover, but it never did.  So he hit the power button to restart the computer.  At that point it would just freeze at the BIOS screen and go no further.

I'll provide an update as soon as I have a chance to pull it out try the RAM and USB stuff.  Thanks again for your help.

Regards, Bob

Just wondering, was there any bad weather about ?

I'm wondering if there may have been a power surge that took the system out, if you have a comparable working system, try the ram in that system, the problem you face here is without being able to power on the system you can do little in the way of testing, which makes diagnosing much harder, so if you can borrow a meter it will tell us if there is a power issue at least, see how you go though.

8210,  Thanks again for the responses.  No bad wethat when this happened the other day.  I do have a multimeter and will be checking power this afternoon as well as the USB disconnects and RAM isolation.

As far as power, from what I remember, there would be +5VDC and +12VDC available from the PS, is that correct?  What would the tolerances be for those two values to be acceptable?

Regards, Bob

Power, if the PSU has started to fail, it's possible it's not supplying enough current to a part that needs it, so if you have access to a meter, it wouldn't hurt to check that it is within the allowed tolerances.

Click on the link here that I posted in the 1st reply, it shows you all the voltages, and gives the tolerances for each, it also has links on how to do this safely, and the pin out's that you can identify to use when testing, needless to say safety first, if you don't know what your doing, or are unsure about the best\safest way to do it, read through the links on that page they give extremely good advice on how to do this, hope it helps.

Ok, disconnected all USB except mouse & keyboard and powered up.  The computer came up normally.  I am going to let it run the rest of the day and if all is well, will start reconnecting USB devices again.  Before I do put the cover back on I will do some of the voltage checks noted in the links you provided, just in case.  I'll provide an update in the next day or so on how it turns out… Thanks again for your help.

Regards, Bob

TBH if removing the USB devices has enabled you to start the PC normally, I think you have probably found what was wrong, which with luck is a good thing, as it means the PC is OK, what you want to do is start testing the USB devices assuming the system is now starting\running fine, shut down then plug them back in 1 at a time, and start the system after each device is reconnected, when the system reverts to it's previous issue then you have probably found your problem item.

That said, dependant on just what you have plugged in, and how much power it requires from the system to operate, it could still be a case of insufficient power, some items require an external power source to take the strain off of the system.

Another possible is the port of the USB on the system itself, as opposed to what you are plugging into it, so during testing also note what happens in other ports if you find a suspect device (causing the above again), just try a couple of other things in that specific port, and try the suspect device in another port(s), if the devices work in other ports, and it's only a specific port(s) that play up, then it's probably a board issue, so see what happens when you try this out, and see what happens.

8210,  Ok, have been monitoring the wifes computer for several days now.  I did plug back in USB devices one at a time once I had the computer running and nothing seemed to cause any problems.  I went ahead and disconnected them all again to let it run and see if it broke after some substantial running time.  It does intermittently.  Sometimes it would freeze at the BIOS screen, other times it would freeze while loading windows upon a reboot.  The vast majority of time that it now fails is while my son is playing Minecraft. Sometimes it will just freeze for a few seconds and then come back, other times once it froze we would just shut it down for a couple of hours and retry it later.  Sometimes it will run nearly all day without freezing up.

Did check voltages and found that my pinout seemed to be a bit different than the one noted in your link.  On the 24pin connector, mine came out as follows:

1.  3.36VDC - Orange Wire      24.  Gnd - Blk Wire

2.  12.10 - Yellow                     23.  5.17 - Red

3.  12.10 - Yellow                     22.  5.17 - Red

4.  5.08 - Purple                       21.  5.17 - Red

5.  4.75 - Gray                         20.  Not Connect

6.  Gnd - Blk                            19.  Gnd - Blk

7.  5.17 - Red                          18.  Gnd - Blk

8.  Gnd - Blk                            17.  Gnd - Blk

9.  5.17 - Red                          16.  Gnd - Green

10.  Gnd - Blk                          15.  Gnd - Blk

11.  3.36 - Orange                   14.  -11.96 - Blue

12.  3.36 - Orange                   13.  3.36 - Orange/Brown

Pins 4 & 5 seemed off a bit when compared to the other voltages…  Not sure why my pinouts didn't match up, plus the only negative voltage I found was the -12VDC on my pin 14 (Blue Wire)…

Your thoughts?

Regards, Bob

I'm certainly no expert when it comes to voltages, but all the figures you mention are within the tolerances allowed, but others may spot something I didn't, but the numbers are in the allowed amounts that I can see, so the colours aside, it seems fine as best I can make out, but the -12v is listed as the blue wire, so that fits, I can only guess that maybe it's a specific unit made purely for Dell or something, I don't know otherwise.

Now looking back, as best I can make out you have an Nvidia card, the spec shows you have:-

Integrated Intel integrated
up to 64-MB video memory (shared) at total system
memory of less than 512 MB
up to 256-MB video memory (shared) at total system
memory of greater than 512 MB
Discrete nVidia Geforce 8800 GT (optional)

 

There has been a massive issue with Nvidia drivers of late, many have suffered from system crashes\freezes and the like, it was really widespread, I was among those so know just how bad it was, I'd be summing up a big reply like this and just before I could submit it the system would freeze\crash, and I'd lose the lot, I was going mental lol, fortunately they seem to have finally sorted the problem, I am now running v332.21, before that I had to use v314.22 as it was the last stable release.

So I suggest that if you do have an Nvidia card, Update the Driver, and if you do this, select the Advance install, and select the check box (keep your eyes open it's not obvious at first look) that say's Perform Clean Install or similar, it completely removes the previous driver which minimises the risk of problems carrying over, try this first as it may be the solution, but it certainly can't hurt anyway.

Another thing to check is temperature, more so if it was working hard when it froze\crashed, SpeedFan can help show this if the system has the sensors, so install it and keep an eye on it in a corner or something, see what the temp is when you power on, and see what it does as you do things, then let us know (maybe take a screenshot is easier) what it say's, and then it may help see what is going on with this possible problem, then we can go from there.

8210,  Ok, installed speed fan and captured the little window that comes up…  Looks like I've got temp1, whatever that is at 84C…. I would assume that isn't good..  Also, this computer used to have an NVidia card in it, but now has an ATI Radeon…  I'm hoping I can past that pic of the Speedfan window in here..  Oh well,,  here is the link so you can see what speedfan says

http://www.mediafire.com/view/9ng27s4yev2sk92/SpFan.jpg

🖼Click to load external image (SpFan.jpg)

Bob

Well that strongly suggests that heat is your problem, if only in part, you could try going into the bios, and scan through the screens (taking care not to alter anything), and see if you can see anything like System Health, basically some systems can read the temperature in the bios, if you see the same sort of temp in there, then you would be wise to check the heatsink fan is not dying, by that I mean spinning as strongly as it should, it can spin, but slowly\weakly enough to not give the cooling required.

Should the fan be strong, then it would pay you to renew the heatsink thermal paste, to do that you would be best to get some ArctiClean or similar, and some lint free cloth, make sure you really clean the old stuff off, and if you get that kit use the purifier as well, it means the new Thermal Paste will do it's job the most efficient way possible, that should resolve the problem assuming it is the only thing at play, but if there is anything else going on we can look again, but those voltage readings don't look good on that, but software can get it wrong, which is why we try not to rely on any single reading if we can help it, but sometimes it's a leap of faith.

Should this temp be corroborated in the bios (fingers crossed it has this in there), then it's highly likely to be the problem, if it's not, it's leap of faith time, but that said it does not hurt to reseat the heatsink every so often, hardcore users do it at least once a year I have heard, so it would not be a wasted task given it's age, if you decide to do this, and need any advice on how to, feel free to holla, we will help you through it, hope this helps.

8210,  Again, thanks so much for all your help…  What exactly is temp1 identifying?  I had been running the computer for the past week with the cover off, but did put it back on last night for awhile to see if it made any difference in any of the temps being reported by SpeedFan.  It didn't.

I'll take another look at the BIOS as well as the CPU heat sink and fan, but I do know it is free of dust and the fan is spinning.  I have not checked to see if the heat sink is secure or if the fan is weakly spinning though.

Wish the cleaner and thermal compound was available at the local radio shack!

Bob

Assuming I am reading your spec correctly, you have a dual core CPU, this is reporting that 1 of your cores is getting very hot, but the other core is fine, you don't have to get that cleaner specifically, others use isopropyl or similar ok, you could ask your store what they have for removing thermal compound, their sure to have something they will recommend, but I have only used this one, and it is very good at what it does.

Dust free is a major plus, it is a major factor sometimes with heat, some say you should clean your case once a year, kind of a spring clean, but I have a window and can see what mine is like, and I only do it when it looks bad enough, very poor practice TBH, but it fit's with my situation.

A weak fan can look like it's doing fine, but if it's not running properly (very hard to tell by looking alone), it could create this situation, I've dealt with 2 systems in my time where the fan was spinning, but when I applied the smallest amount of pressure on it the fan stopped (using extreme care touching just the center solid core), replaced the fan, temp's were fine without messing about with the heatsink etc, so definitely check the fan is not failing before going to strip down the heatsink etc, if it's just the fan at fault, it will save a lot of work and time.

8210,  Ok, pulled the heat sink and fan assy today.  there were a couple of small patches of dust blocking the surface just under the fan.  I completely cleaned both the fan assy and the heat sink completely.  Used alcohol to remove the thermal compound from the heat sink and CPU.  Applied a small dollop of some nano grease I found at Staples and reinstalled everything.  When I powered up I quickly checked the fan by applying a slight pressure to the center and I could feel that it was strong.  Immediately went into the BIOS to see if there were any pages that would show health or temps, but I did not find anything.  I let it complete its boot and then launched SpeedFan again to see what it reported.  The computer hadn't been runing even 2 minutes and SpeedFan still had Temp1 as 84C, but the other Temp1 below it was checked at 40C and the Core 0 and Core 1 numbers were 38C.  Wish that SpeedFan gave more information as to what specifically each of those designators meant.  Having 2 Temp1's with drastically different temps just confuses me, especially when you have Core 0 and Core 1.  I would think the Core's would be the actual CPU temps for a dual core CPU…

It is currently up and running and my son is happy doing his Minecraft thing, I just hope it continues…  Any other applications that you know of that might back up what SpeedFan is saying or possibly counterdict it?

Thanks again for all your help and patience on this issue…

Bob