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Stuck in BIOS

post #1 of 4
9/3/06 at 9:09pm
Thread Starter 
Long story short: Start machine up, it gets to the DVD drive line in the BIOS and stops. Won't go any further. Doesn't make a lot of noises like it's trying to go further. However, it was responsive in that I could hit F2 and it would try going into Setup (it would just stop there). I could hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and it would restart. I could hit Fn+F10 and Turbo Fan mode would come on. So it's not that it was locking up; it was just hanging at some point (and no; no external USB devices were connected; just the power cable).

So this morning, I pulled the top RAM. Restarted. Same BIOS problem. Pulled bottom RAM, put top RAM in bottom slot. Restarted. Nothing. Well, power button lights come on and fans start up, but that's it. Group of 4 little lights to the left of the power button don't turn on. Nothing at all shows on the screen now. Put both stick of RAM in. Nada. Totally dead in the water now. Power light turns green when I turn it on, but not much else happens. At this point, Ctrl+Alt+Del does not do anything. Fn+F10 does not do anything. When powered on, the DVD drive makes a noise for a second, the Power button light and the 3 lights to the left of it go on. Power light is green, but that's it. Nothing else.

Any ideas?
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post #2 of 4
9/3/06 at 9:24pm
You sure your Hard drive isn't dead FT?
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post #3 of 4
9/3/06 at 11:41pm
Diagnostics - What an adventure.

Get you hands on a bootable copy of an alternate operating system that runs from the CD drive (RAMTEST86 is DOS based, or a variety of Lynix's). Tr to get the RAMTEST because, then you can check out the RAM, as well as the system.

Remove both sticks of memory and try booting with one stick in the top location. If that doesn't work try booting with the same stick in the bottom location. If that memory stick does not work try the other one in the same sequence. By "booting" at this point, I mean simply being able to get to BIOS by depresing F2. Once you have booted change the boot sequence so that the CD is "first in line" - use one of the "Boot CDs" for further diagnosics). All that this does is effectively remove the HDD and the HDD Controller from the list of possible failure candidates. If the HDD went "south", then it won't boot - no mater what you try unless you remove it from the "environment. If you are able to boot using one of the alternative OSs on CD, this would indicate that the major portions of your system are in fact working.

Down load the HDD "checker" utilities from the HDD Manufacturers site (normally can be found in the RMA URL). They normally have an ISO "bootable" image. Then use this to boot and test the HDD. Having now had two HDD failures on the Hitachi drives (one delivered with the laptopn and the replacement drive for the one that failed - go figure..), I know that their utility will work and the symthoms that you initially experienced was very similir to those that I experienced. So... Synergi might be right about a possible bad HDD.
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post #4 of 4
9/4/06 at 1:09am
Thread Starter 
Don't think the HD's dead. No previous warning signs (altho' I know that there aren't necessarily any needed). I'll have to pull it and plug it into my desktop and see if it works ok.

Did check the HD connectors (I often get the No Operating System Found error in my Sony, so I'm familiar w/ that territory). My 2nd drive (100gb Seagate) looked to be unseated a little, but not enough to cause a problem. Any way it goes, I snugged up the connectors- no change.

Tried the memory swapping and booting single sticks in the top location. No go. Before, I'd tried with one in the bottom and that was a no-go. There is nothing that comes up at this point. Absolutely no activity on the screen. The only way it could get any worse is if the power button light didn't go on when depressed.

I through in an Ubuntu disc for giggles and nothing happened. Well, the fans started up, but that's the only difference.

Will try more when I get more time
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