Computer won't boot to BIOS (or takes hours)

hawkhench · 17 Oct 2014 at 08:24

My old computer which is now with my Mum (Asrock B85M-ITX, i5-4570, HD5870, 2x4gb Kingston 1600) has decided over the last few months to start being awkward. Occasionally it wouldn't boot up, but turning it off and on fixed it.

Now, you turn the power on, you see the DVD drive light up and hear the fans spin up to max....then they just stay there. You'll come back in 3 hours time and it'll still be at the same point.

According to my Mum sometimes it won't come on, sometimes it takes 3-4 hours, at one point it came on after about 8 hours, and some times she just gives up and turns it off again. She said "it did actually come on quickly the other day, it only took half an hour" without a hint of irony.

I've just got home and had a play. Everything is connected properly. I've unplugged all external accessories, checked everything inside is plugged in securely, but I can't even get it to come on so I can do very little troubleshooting. I've cleared the CMOS and that doesn't appear to have made a difference.

When it does come on, it works fine and she can use it like normal but it's obviously far from being in good working order.

[update: got into BIOS, everything looked fine (and it did only take 20 mins or so to get there), exited BIOS, comp rebooted, now stuck again]

Any ideas? Thanks.

Rhyswh · 17 Oct 2014 at 08:57

Do you get any beeps?

Hagar · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:08

Have you tried F2 on to get to the bios menu.

If successful try a bios reflash using a USB drive.

Try removing the 5870 and using the onboard GFX.

Remove and replace the mobo battery.

Try booting with Linux live disk, any flavour. That will check if there is a hardware or software issue.

If you get it working, back up all data, reformat and reinstall the OS.

hawkhench · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:13

Have you tried F2 on to get to the bios menu.

No power to the keyboard or mouse at this stage from the looks of the lights on them

Do you get any beeps?

No, but I'm not sure there's a mobo speaker/buzzer installed.

Rhyswh · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:16

Have you got one spare you could plug in? Could give you the answer to your problems with minimum effort, not guaranteed but definitely worth a try.

biuro74 · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:19

Which PSU is inside ? In most cases, ITX-based cases

are equipped with some rubbish PSU.

David Bisset · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:37

hawkhench said:
No power to the keyboard or mouse at this stage from the looks of the lights on them

Got an old PS/2 keyboard? The mobo has a port for it, might be more useful. Can you remember if it had a pre-bios/boot splash screen? If it did and that's not showing then probably you can't just get straight in anyway but worth a shot.

As nkata suggested, I'd remove any extraneous bits - disconnect the optical drive, remove the graphics card, remove one stick of RAM, unplug any random USB devices, printers etc that may be connected etc. Try and minimise what you've got to look at

Good luck!

Hagar · 17 Oct 2014 at 09:57

hawkhench said:
No power to the keyboard or mouse at this stage from the looks of the lights on them

Sounds like a cheap PS2 keyboard would be useful.

EDIT already suggested

hawkhench · 17 Oct 2014 at 11:57

Alright cheers that's a fair bit to work on. I've never come across a problem that works if you give it 8 hours before in terms of waiting for a computer to come on.

wazza300 · 17 Oct 2014 at 11:59

updating to latest mb bios might help aswell