Long stored computer wont boot

archer22

Can you guys give me some basic info on this prob as I know little about computer mechanics so to speak.I got a desktop (Siemens) that was idle for a few years..it was working fine when it was put away.However when I took it out and plugged it in recently I find it wont boot up anymore..the lights come on and it appears to start booting but then stops...any ideas what has happened..got to be something to do with the long period of idleness I imagine..thanks

vibe666

you'll have to give us a bit more to go on than that. is there anything on the screen? any errors? does it make any beeping noises and if so what is the beeping sequence?

if it's been in storage for a long time then the backup battery for the bios etc. will be flat and it would have reset everything to the default values of the bios and will be asking you to put in the date or confirm the settings, so it's possible it's just doing that and waiting for some input from you before it continues to boot, but that there's a minor problem with the video preventing it from outputting to the screen.

archer22

vibe666 wrote: »

you'll have to give us a bit more to go on than that. is there anything on the screen? any errors? does it make any beeping noises and if so what is the beeping sequence?

if it's been in storage for a long time then the backup battery for the bios etc. will be flat and it would have reset everything to the default values of the bios and will be asking you to put in the date or confirm the settings, so it's possible it's just doing that and waiting for some input from you before it continues to boot, but that there's a minor problem with the video preventing it from outputting to the screen.

Hi thanks for the reply.No nothing comes on screen.At the beginning everything looks like normal startup sounds but then stops..green light stays on but orange goes out.I thought it might be some kind of battery issue alright.Would leaving it plugged in for long period revive the battery? or is there somekind of input I can do on keyboard to get the process to continue..Sorry for the simple term I just dont know that much about computers just trying to find if its a minor or major prob.

matt-dublin

is there any beeping or any further pattern to the flashing lights?

what exact model PC is it?

It should boot even if the battery is dead, it will just have forgotten what date it is.

yoyo

Does the light remain on even though nothing displays? You could try reseating the memory if so, could be something that simple

Nick

archer22

matt-dublin wrote: »

is there any beeping or any further pattern to the flashing lights?

what exact model PC is it?

It should boot even if the battery is dead, it will just have forgotten what date it is.

No never gets as far as beeping after initial few seconds when it seems normal only green light stays on...Not sure of exact model (I check when I get home)..Its Fujitsu Siemens desktop bought in 2001.Monitor stays blank but it does give a message if its diconnected from pc so it seems to be working ok there.

matt-dublin

kinds sounds like the PSU or system board is faulty.

have you another computer you can put the hard drive into to recover your data?

yoyo

archer22 wrote: »

No never gets as far as beeping after initial few seconds when it seems normal only green light stays on...Not sure of exact model (I check when I get home)..Its Fujitsu Siemens desktop bought in 2001.Monitor stays blank but it does give a message if its diconnected from pc so it seems to be working ok there.

Try reseating the RAM/Memory

Nick

archer22

yoyo wrote: »

Does the light remain on even though nothing displays? You could try reseating the memory if so, could be something that simple

Nick

Yeah thats it green light stays on...how would I reset memory?

archer22

matt-dublin wrote: »

kinds sounds like the PSU or system board is faulty.

have you another computer you can put the hard drive into to recover your data?

Yeah maybe thats it..Dampness gets in everywhere here..that might have damaged it.

yoyo

archer22 wrote: »

Yeah thats it green light stays on...how would I reset memory?

Reseat (I.e: unplug/Re plug), Look at this vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCFJTeKJTJI

Nick

archer22

yoyo wrote: »

Reseat (I.e: unplug/Re plug), Look at this vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCFJTeKJTJI

Nick

Ok Nick thanks..will try that soon as I get a chance.

vibe666

my first thought was that if there's nothing on the screen then it could be a video card problem, but that your system is booting normally apart from that, except that with the flat backup battery your bios settings will have been reset to the default, which will require you to "press F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup" or something along those lines to set up your bios, which you obviously can't see if the video card is borked.

if you're reseating RAM, you might as well do the same with the video card and go through each of the cables to ensure they are all properly connected at both ends.

archer22

vibe666 wrote: »

my first thought was that if there's nothing on the screen then it could be a video card problem, but that your system is booting normally apart from that, except that with the flat backup battery your bios settings will have been reset to the default, which will require you to "press F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup" or something along those lines to set up your bios, which you obviously can't see if the video card is borked.

if you're reseating RAM, you might as well do the same with the video card and go through each of the cables to ensure they are all properly connected at both ends.

Thanks vibe..where is the video card.It will be weekend before I have a go at it just trying to get as much info as possible first.this is all new to me

vibe666

it will either be a separate card taking up one of the big slots, with the connection sticking out of the back, or it will be part of the main motherboard. if it's a card, you can take it out and reseat it (in much the same way as the RAM, altho look out for the small clip holding it in place at the back of the socket). if it's part of te motherboard, as some lower specced PC's have, then there's nothing much you can do with it.

it would still be worth checking the monitor itself and the cable though, to make sure they are both working properly. you can do this very simply by connecting it to another computer to test it out. most modern laptops will have a VGA video port that would do the job.

matt-dublin

Tbh vibe it sounds like the system board is faulty, likely to be corrosion of components or solder on the board due to damp storage.

Best bet here is to put the hard drive into another PC and copy the data off it, it's highly unlikely you'll recover this system.

I honestly think you're wasting time as if it was a reseating fix you would have seen the bios splash screen or heard some beeping which you're not

yoyo

matt-dublin wrote: »

Tbh vibe it sounds like the system board is faulty, likely to be corrosion of components or solder on the board due to damp storage.

Best bet here is to put the hard drive into another PC and copy the data off it, it's highly unlikely you'll recover this system.

I honestly think you're wasting time as if it was a reseating fix you would have seen the bios splash screen or heard some beeping which you're not

If RAM is loose usually no signal displays, from expierience. Still it is likely much more major system issues that are causing this issue

Nick

vibe666

matt-dublin wrote: »

Tbh vibe it sounds like the system board is faulty, likely to be corrosion of components or solder on the board due to damp storage.

we have no idea what the problem is yet, and there's no harm in trying for the few minutes it will take. if he were to remove the hard drive and plug it into another system he's going to have to take the lid off anyway and it will take 2 minutes to check so what harm can it possibly do to have a go?

if he doesn't have another desktop system to put it into, he'll have to find a usb drive to connect it to a laptop so we might even save him some money if it turns out to be something simple.

yoyo wrote: »

If RAM is loose usually no signal displays, from expierience. Still it is likely much more major system issues that are causing this issue

Nick

if the ram is not seated correctly then it will usually give you a POST beep sequence to let you know.

matt-dublin

vibe666 wrote: »

we have no idea what the problem is yet, and there's no harm in trying for the few minutes it will take. if he were to remove the hard drive and plug it into another system he's going to have to take the lid off anyway and it will take 2 minutes to check so what harm can it possibly do to have a go?


if he doesn't have another desktop system to put it into, he'll have to find a usb drive to connect it to a laptop so we might even save him some money if it turns out to be something simple.

Totally agreed, but IMO the fact that no sequences or beeps are coming up suggests that the system isn't able to boot far enough to identify it has a problem with itself so reseating likely won't help, but won't hurt.

vibe666 wrote: »

if the ram is not seated correctly then it will usually give you a POST beep sequence to let you know.

which we're not getting

vibe666

matt-dublin wrote: »

Totally agreed, but IMO the fact that no sequences or beeps are coming up suggests that the system isn't able to boot far enough to identify it has a problem with itself so reseating likely won't help, but won't hurt.
which we're not getting

I actually missed the bit in his previous posts where he said there were no beeps at all, so yes, agreed it's pretty much borked if he's not even getting a single beep from the POST, it's most likely just the PSU powering up and turning on the power light, but the motherboard is probably dead if there's not even a single beep to indicate a successful POST sequence.

as matt-dublin says, pull out the HDD and stick it in another machine (or a USB HDD enclosure) to try and recover your data from the old drive.

if the conditions the PC was stored in have degraded the system this far, i wouldn't be trusting the drive long term either, so just power it on, copy everything off it as soon as you can and just don' trust it for anthing important going forward as it could be close to failing.

yoyo

Its worth pointing out not all machines emmit beep codes, or some builders don't bother plugging in the speaker cable!

Nick

vibe666

it would want to be pretty old for the 'beep' speaker not to be soldered onto the motherboard and even if it isn't, it's a factory built siemens PC, not a home/shop built one so somoene not plugging in a cable seems very unlikely.

matt-dublin

vibe666 wrote: »

I actually missed the bit in his previous posts where he said there were no beeps at all, so yes, agreed it's pretty much borked.

this word just made my day, i have full intentions of using it several times before the end of the week

yoyo

vibe666 wrote: »

it would want to be pretty old for the 'beep' speaker not to be soldered onto the motherboard and even if it isn't, it's a factory built siemens PC, not a home/shop built one so somoene not plugging in a cable seems very unlikely.

I missed that it was a Fujitsu alrite, so yeah I think its been narrowed down to being broken "beyond repair" likely :P

Nick

vibe666

matt-dublin wrote: »

this word just made my day, i have full intentions of using it several times before the end of the week

it's a great word alright.

my wife has been using the word 'fookered' recently, which i think is somewhere between fcuked and snookered. :pac:

matt-dublin

Yeah Fookered is good but you can't really use it in an office environment, i feel like pulling out the power cable of my core router and telling management its borked for the hell of it

enniscorthy

matt-dublin wrote: »

Yeah Fookered is good but you can't really use it in an office environment, i feel like pulling out the power cable of my core router and telling management its borked for the hell of it

hehe

archer22

Hi Guys..I just reseated the Ram/memory like you said and she fired up..working perfect now ..many thanks.

matt-dublin

archer22 wrote: »

Hi Guys..I just reseated the Ram/memory like you said and she fired up..working perfect now ..many thanks.

wow.....

vibe666

matt-dublin wrote: »

wow.....

lol, that's us told then!

matt-dublin

i hate computers.... bring on project management! telephony here we go

unkel

RAM's a funny thing

Kudos in this threat to yoyo!

yoyo

Well folks, Look who was right after all then :P :P :pac:

Nick

KAGY

I got an oldish but (now) perfectly working laptop for nothing because of this, the CPU or RAM was unseated during an office move. "Completely Unfixable" according to the tech support company :-)

yoyo

KAGY wrote: »

I got an oldish but (now) perfectly working laptop for nothing because of this, the CPU or RAM was unseated during an office move. "Completely Unfixable" according to the tech support company :-)

Bets are it was the RAM too! Really I don't understand how people are so quick to render a machine unfixable without doing even the basic of checks,

nick

matt-dublin

enterprise IT environment, easier for me to provide a new machine then waste time troubleshooting

vibe666

exactly. you'd be amazed the amount of good stuff that gets thrown out just because it's easier than doing anything with it.

about 75% of my home office is made up of old enterprise company cast off's that i've rescued and that includes some decent specced PC's and LCD monitors that were headed for a skip.