[976786]

Good day!
A friend of mine got a home-built stationary computer (non-laptop) as a birthday gift some years ago.

Still works fine except for the HDD being a bit slow. However, an annoying problem persists: Sometimes it wont boot up. Power button pressed most of the time it starts (indicated by a short "beep") and boots into windows. Sometimes though it just "starts" and then nothing happens, no "beep", just the fan's humming sound being heard, screen is black, no boot.

If you press and hold the reset button beside the power button it sometimes comes to life. It feels like a lottery though, you never know when it will really start.

Is there any way to analyze whats going on with a bootable analyzer or something?

Could it be hardware error? Something in the power button connection being bad? Power supply error? It is obviously something going on (not going on) at the startup but ... what?

Otherwise it works all fine.

The computer case says "Cooler Master", cannot see any other brand from where I am sitting without turning it off. Specs:

AMD A4-3300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics - 2.50 GHz
RAM: 4 GB
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
ACPI x64-based PC
HDD WDC WD 5000 AAKX ATA 500 GB


Please help!

 

[Corday]

If fan is starting then probably an early sign of HD failure. Back up data. Would be worth it to open case and clean up with compressed air.

 

[spunk.funk]

The Single Beep when a computer starts signifies that all the hardware is working correctly after running POST. If you do not get the single beep, then there is a hardware problem.
As Corday suggested, shut down the computer and open the case. clean out all dust and blow out all fans with a can of compressed air. Look at the label for the Power Supply Unit and report the Make, Model# and Wattage. Check the power and data cables for the HDD, make sure they are plugged in tightly to the HDD and the Motherboard. Start the computer and make sure all fans are spinning.

 

[976786]

Arighty. Thank you so much for your replies.

I will open it up and check connections and stuff. I have been thinking of getting a new HDD since it have started to sound a bit too much noisy. Though the beeping and non-beeping has been going on since the computer was new.

Since the one who built it has no idea then it's been rather frustrating.

Anyway, I will check on the wires and note the power supply and return to you later.

 

[squeeks]

I would start the machine by jumping the front panel pins to confirm its not a bad switch. We want to ensure the switch is still operational.

As for the black screen that definitely could be an RAM issue or HDD. Try running memtest 86+ on the dimm's. If that passes I would run sea tools next. Please back up any data at this point due to the instability of the system.

Black screen could be due to corrupted sectors on the HDD or dislodge/failed ram module. Please confirm these components are good.

 

[spunk.funk]

There would be nothing wrong with the power switch if you press it and the fans start spinning and there are lights on the computer.
As stated there is a hardware problem if you do not get the POST beep after every boot.
As stated, this could be caused, by a failed data cable to the HDD or, the RAM may be at fault or the PSU is failing. You can replace the SATA Data cable and try a different power plug from the PSU to the HDD.
You can also download the ISO image for Memtest in my signature, burn the image to CD using IMGBurn also in my signature. Remove all but one stick of RAM and boot off of the newly created CD and run the tests for at least 7 passes on each stick of RAM separately. If you get any errors (red) that stick is bad and needs to be replaced.