PC won't boot past BIOS

Matt_A_2

Hi,

Just gone to turn my desktop (Dell Dimension 9100) on and it gets about a quarter of the way through booting the BIOS when it freezes. What's worse is, whilst it is booting I can't enter setup or enter the boot utility... do not pass go, do not collect £200.

Haven't encountered anything like this before so if anyone has any ideas they'd be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,


Matt

gaming_guy

im not sure if this will work, but try removing the bios battery (for 30seconds to a min or so). it is usually silver and about the size of a 10p coin

wolfman

Yeah good suggestion. Removing the battery should reset the CMOS settings.

Strange that it does that though. Usually when something doesn't work you don't get anything apart from a beep. The duration and number of beeps corresponds to what is at fault.

How long have you had this pc, and has this just randomly started occurring?

It might also be worth opening up the PC and giving it a clean out, make sure nothing is overheating or caked in dust.

Matt_A_2

wolfman wrote: »

The duration and number of beeps corresponds to what is at fault.

Yeah, that's what I was expecting, but not getting a peep from the onboard speaker.

wolfman wrote: »

How long have you had this pc, and has this just randomly started occurring?

The PC's getting on for about two years old, and yes, it's just started happening this evening when I got back from work.

Matt_A_2

gaming_guy wrote: »

im not sure if this will work...

You were spot on. Normal service now resumed, thanks very much.

fuzyfelt

I've had a similar problem a couple of times with my PC. Both times, taking of the cover, vacuuming inside and reseating the cards sorted it out. I'm not sure what fixed it, and maybe i was just lucky....

Andy

MercilessKiller

vacuuming inside is VERY dangerous and can cause a lot of static!!!!

To clean dust off the inside use Air Dusters and make sure you spray towards an open area (not towards closed drives for example)

Dust isn't a reason for a pc to stop working

ormus

dust can cause overheating which will stop some machines from working if they have a thermal cutout device.
dust can aslo destroy/blow a machine pcb due to overheating. worse case is that itll maybe start a fire.