[SOLVED] Desktop refuses to start - no beeps, no signal to screen

[JeppeArne]

Hi all

My desktop PC has (now) become completely inaccessible. It revs up in cycles of 20 seconds or so. HDD-led flashes very briefly in the start of the cycle and again, yet more briefly, at the end of the cycle. The contents of the hard-disk (system disk) are perfectly accessible from a different computer, although (of course) I do not know if the boot sector is intact. All that appears on the screen is “No signal”. I am unable to enter the bios by pressing the bios key (DEL), although, strangely, the computer once (a single time) entered the bios by itself during startup attempt. I took the opportunity to make sure that the boot order was first HDD then DVD and changed startup from Fast to Normal, which, however, is not really of any importance right now, since there is no signal to the screen at all.

Before the computer became totally inaccessible, it had problems shutting down as well. When I chose shut down in Windows, it sometimes restarted just as if I had chosen Restart. I sometimes had to press and hold the shut-down button on the PC case to force the PC to shut down.

I hope you will visit my thread in windows10forums.com, where I tried in mid-September to explain my computer’s odd behavior, and where you can see my system specs. I sure hope you can offer me some help. I am aware that I may have to change some part(s), problem is Which.

Kind regards

 

[CountMike]

Hi all

My desktop PC has (now) become completely inaccessible. It revs up in cycles of 20 seconds or so. HDD-led flashes very briefly in the start of the cycle and again, yet more briefly, at the end of the cycle. The contents of the hard-disk (system disk) are perfectly accessible from a different computer, although (of course) I do not know if the boot sector is intact. All that appears on the screen is “No signal”. I am unable to enter the bios by pressing the bios key (DEL), although, strangely, the computer once (a single time) entered the bios by itself during startup attempt. I took the opportunity to make sure that the boot order was first HDD then DVD and changed startup from Fast to Normal, which, however, is not really of any importance right now, since there is no signal to the screen at all.

Before the computer became totally inaccessible, it had problems shutting down as well. When I chose shut down in Windows, it sometimes restarted just as if I had chosen Restart. I sometimes had to press and hold the shut-down button on the PC case to force the PC to shut down.

I hope you will visit my thread in windows10forums.com, where I tried in mid-September to explain my computer’s odd behavior, and where you can see my system specs. I sure hope you can offer me some help. I am aware that I may have to change some part(s), problem is Which.

Kind regards

I would (and often do) use a Live Linux distro on an USB stick just to see if all HW is OK. http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download can help you download and install it.

 

[JeppeArne]

Hi CountMike
Thank you very much for your suggestion. I have downloaded and installed Lili USB Creator. However, I am not sure what program you would suggest I install on my USB-key, so please let me know. I know nothing about Linux. Also, I am unsure if my computer will read the USB-key. But I'll have a go at is, of course.
Again, thanks an awful lot, CountMike. If your idea works on my computer, it is exactly what I need!

 

[CountMike]

Hi CountMike
Thank you very much for your suggestion. I have downloaded and installed Lili USB Creator. However, I am not sure what program you would suggest I install on my USB-key, so please let me know. I know nothing about Linux. Also, I am unsure if my computer will read the USB-key. But I'll have a go at is, of course.
Again, thanks an awful lot, CountMike. If your idea works on my computer, it is exactly what I need!

I would suggest Linux Mint (any GUI) or Debian Live. They have enough tools for troubleshooting.

 

[JeppeArne]

Using my laptop, I uccessfully made a LinuxLive USB-key with Linux Mint 19.2. Problem is, however, I still can't get into my desktop's bios .

 

[JeppeArne]

Hi Count Mike

I finally got access to my computer again, and it seems to be stable. The issue got solved while I was in a different forum. What I did was switching to the other Bios by moving the Bios selection jumper on the board. The Bios is ASRock UEFI, and the version now in use is P1.90; the version in use before was P2.40. Do you think there is any reason to update the Bios?

Thanks for your replies to a difficult question. Unfortunately, due to the obviously corrupt Bios and resulting inability to log on to UEFI, the LinuxLive USB-key did not help me. Hope I can make some TOTALLY DIFFERENT use of it .

Only problem when I had changed the Bios was that Windows did not recognize my three non-system-partition hard drives right away. Only when I had changed the Bios settings from IDE to ACHI did Windows see the three drives.

Thanks for your efforts. It was such a relief to finally be able to access all my photos and other important stuff on my computer.