- Feb 11, 2015
- 18
- 0
- 4,510
Evening,
Trying to help a friend out with his son's computer. Everything was working fine on it until about a week ago. When he turns it on now it goes straight into power saving mode, without even displaying the bios splash screen. He's running a Dell desktop, about 3 years old. I don't know his specific specs. Here's everything I tried to fix it for him:
Reset the monitors to factory settings. Self tested the monitors, 2 separate monitors, both work. Tried hooking both up via both HDMI and VGA. No dice.
Pulled the graphics card and plugged the monitor into the Mobo ports, nothing. Pulled the CMOS battery, unplugged the PC, held the power button down for 15-20 seconds, hooked everything back up, still no joy on either the mobo ports or the graphics card (when re connected). Only difference after pulling all the power was that now when turning the computer OFF, a simple press of the button and it immediately went off, whereas before pressing the button caused a 10 second or so delay, then the system would power off. I'm assuming that's because the computer was booting windows, and pressing the button was issuing the shut down command, whereas now something else is happening.
Pulled and re-seated his RAM, nothing. Pulled everything and go the mobo to POST, which it will do, but still nothing on the display, no option to go into BIOS, just "entering power save mode."
I should add - all (both) the fans spin up just fine, power isn't the issue.
The only thing I haven't tried is booting it on one of my screens that I know for sure work, because he won't let me take the PC to my house for whatever reason. That being said, both monitors will self test so it seems unlikely they are the culprit.
Normally I'd end here with "anything I haven't thought of?", but the plot thickens! Same kid decides, hey screw it I'm just going to get a new PC, and decides to build his own. I can't vouch for his assembly process, but lets just assume nothing overly wrong happened (I did confirm he didn't wear an anti-static strap. Sigh). Apparently now the new computer is having the exact same problem, but then he tells me he's using the HDD from the old computer in the new one. Seems to me that the HDD wouldn't be causing this issue, because the mobo should at least boot up and tell the screen "I live!" so that it can then go through the boot process of choosing where to boot from. Fried HDD should just give a boot error no?
Just looking for a little advice, my friend is not very tech savvy.
Thanks!
Trying to help a friend out with his son's computer. Everything was working fine on it until about a week ago. When he turns it on now it goes straight into power saving mode, without even displaying the bios splash screen. He's running a Dell desktop, about 3 years old. I don't know his specific specs. Here's everything I tried to fix it for him:
Reset the monitors to factory settings. Self tested the monitors, 2 separate monitors, both work. Tried hooking both up via both HDMI and VGA. No dice.
Pulled the graphics card and plugged the monitor into the Mobo ports, nothing. Pulled the CMOS battery, unplugged the PC, held the power button down for 15-20 seconds, hooked everything back up, still no joy on either the mobo ports or the graphics card (when re connected). Only difference after pulling all the power was that now when turning the computer OFF, a simple press of the button and it immediately went off, whereas before pressing the button caused a 10 second or so delay, then the system would power off. I'm assuming that's because the computer was booting windows, and pressing the button was issuing the shut down command, whereas now something else is happening.
Pulled and re-seated his RAM, nothing. Pulled everything and go the mobo to POST, which it will do, but still nothing on the display, no option to go into BIOS, just "entering power save mode."
I should add - all (both) the fans spin up just fine, power isn't the issue.
The only thing I haven't tried is booting it on one of my screens that I know for sure work, because he won't let me take the PC to my house for whatever reason. That being said, both monitors will self test so it seems unlikely they are the culprit.
Normally I'd end here with "anything I haven't thought of?", but the plot thickens! Same kid decides, hey screw it I'm just going to get a new PC, and decides to build his own. I can't vouch for his assembly process, but lets just assume nothing overly wrong happened (I did confirm he didn't wear an anti-static strap. Sigh). Apparently now the new computer is having the exact same problem, but then he tells me he's using the HDD from the old computer in the new one. Seems to me that the HDD wouldn't be causing this issue, because the mobo should at least boot up and tell the screen "I live!" so that it can then go through the boot process of choosing where to boot from. Fried HDD should just give a boot error no?
Just looking for a little advice, my friend is not very tech savvy.
Thanks!
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