Please help...my PC won't boot

[timtim86]

Hi everyone,

Please can you give me a hand. When I switch on my PC, it spins up, then turns off again, then spins up and gets stuck on the ASUS mobo post screen. None of the buttons do anything and I can get into setup.

This seems to happen when the power gets shut off completely to the PC (i.e., when changing a component) and appears to sometimes randomly fix itself. This time however, it just won't come back on.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated...I've already tried resetting the bios by removing the battery.

Tim

[timtim86]

Oh, some specs:

Q6600 Processor
500W Earthwatts PSU
Abit/IP35 Dark Raider Mobo
2GB Corsair XMS2 6400
XFX 8800GS 384mb

[BEANFro Elite]

Are there any beeps and/or any error messages?

[timtim86]

Nope, just one beep before the post screen shows up. There aren't any error messages at all

[GoNz0]

strip it down so theres no drives or pci cards, 1 stick of ram and try again

[iftiq]

Stupid suggestion- but I was having this problem too and I think what was causing it was the little button battery in my motherboard somehow got knocked a bit loose. I was tearing my hair out for days trying to figure out what was going on. I opened up my PC to see what was going on and noticed that the battery wasn't sitting properly in the socket and pushed it in- voila problem fixed.

[timtim86]

Thanks for the responses guys. I've checked the button battery - it's fine. I then unplugged everything except the primary HDD and it booted. I then put the RAM in, and it booted again. That just leaves my storage HDD and DVD (both SATA) unplugged, so I'm guessing there's something wrong with the SATA on the motherboard maybe? Any suggestions?

Would it be worth updating the bios?

[GoNz0]

it would be worth finding out what device, if its just the dvd bin it and buy another.

[PeteSmith]

I would certainly update your bios anyway as a matter of procedure. Have you checked the BIOS settings, It may be the SATA controller your DVD and Storage HDD are connected to is disabled?

[timtim86]

Hmmm okay, I'm going to start by updating the bios. At the moment the Abit website doesn't really seem to be working - I can't get to the driver section - does anyone know where else I could get the bios? And what else do I need? Winflash?

[Pob255]

ASUS mobo post screen

Abit/IP35 Dark Raider Mobo

Ummm is that correct? if so something is badly wrong there.

If you had anything in the BIOS set to overclock reset it all to stock settings

But offhand it sound like it's getting stuck trieing to read a drive.