Installed Vista SP1, after a lot of problems, now no BIOS screen

[theLeeHarvey]

But here there is something you can try: Identify on your mobo a jumper that 'clear' the CMOS and reset the mobo to a safety state. You must shortcut that jumper for a few seconds with the power completely down.

 

Hope you have luck there.

 

 

Ok, how do I do that. Is there a small button or switch on the mother board?

 

I will take a look at it again when I get home and see if I can find a disconnected cable to a buzzer. I have never noticed any sound codes on startup so I am guessing Dell disabled it like you said during manufacture.

 

There are a series of Diagnostic lights on the front of the PC that are supposed to display in a certain sequence and tell you what's wrong with the PC. Would that work just as well as a sound code?

[TheTerminator2004]

DELL PCs do not use the motherboard beeper for diagnostics during POST, irritatingly. There are for diagnostic lights on the front of the case, at least with my Dimension 9150, marked 1, 2, 3, and 4, and these are used to indicate which stage the PC is at when booting. Different combinations of numbers mean different things, you'll have to consult your manual to find out what they mean (If DELL didn't send you one with your PC, which they have an irritating habit of doing, you're going to have to try and find it somewhere on their website). I *think* the motherboard itself may have a small LCD screen somewhere on it which also displays diagnostic information, but I may be getting confused with another manufacturer.

 

If everything was working fine until you installed SP1, its unlikely its a hardware problem - however, all the other evidence does point to something failing, somewhere. Reflashing the BIOS may fix the problem, but not only am I unsure how to do that with a DELL motherboard, but getting hold of the custom BIOS software they use could be tricky too.

 

Oh, and nosisab, it can't have anything to do with overclocking, because the options for doing that have been conveniently removed from the BIOS in all DELL motherboards. Doing it through an application in Windows doesnt work either.

 

Re. the CMOS jumper: again, you're gonna need to consult the manual for your PC, or contact DELL technical support, to find out where exactly you need to connect it. And ofc, you need to actually get hold of one from somewhere, DELL don't supply them with their PCs.

[nosisab]

But here there is something you can try: Identify on your mobo a jumper that 'clear' the CMOS and reset the mobo to a safety state. You must shortcut that jumper for a few seconds with the power completely down.

 

Hope you have luck there.

 

 

Ok, how do I do that. Is there a small button or switch on the mother board?

 

I will take a look at it again when I get home and see if I can find a disconnected cable to a buzzer. I have never noticed any sound codes on startup so I am guessing Dell disabled it like you said during manufacture.

 

There are a series of Diagnostic lights on the front of the PC that are supposed to display in a certain sequence and tell you what's wrong with the PC. Would that work just as well as a sound code?

Not sure how Dell implements that CMOS clearing, yet this is something ALL motherboards have. Normally that jumper is a 2 or in some cases 3 pins with a little plastic piece (that indeed is a shorter) placed at the pins 2 and 3 while in normal operation and meant to be placed (with all the power down) at the pins 1 and 2 for a few seconds to perform that CMOS clearing. I did see once one ASUS mobo that had just two soldering points and maybe some mobo may implement a switch (less probably because it should not be a common procedure and not meant to be done for mistake)

 

About the lights, I don't know albeit it's perfectly possible. You should search for your mobo manual if you can recall it's model while accessing the web, if you don't have it at house, and at least take note of the jumpers positions and everything more you deem worthwhile. Try finding something about the Dell ways to identify that kind of troubles. Anyway the function of the jumper may be impressed onto the mobo's surface and I hope you have means to see it well.

 

At this point I don't have anything more I can think to try and help in advance. Take note of everything you do, even if those lights flashes and carefully observe the way they does it. The sequence and timings may be important to diagnose the trouble.

 

I really wish you luck here. It's not unknown that the simple removing and replacing of some cards may resolve some problems related with poor contact.

[theLeeHarvey]

I have the Manual and noticed the lights flashing when I turn it on, but they flash in random patterns and none of the patterns stay lit very long at all. Its almost as if the computer is booting up normally, but there is no signal to the monitor. I've tried disconnecting and reconnecting the monitor, but that didn't fix anything as far as I can tell.

 

BTW, what does CMOS mean?

 

Also, after a bit of looking around, I realized that before the total blackout I'm suffering now, I had been experiencing what people are calling "the Blue Screen of Death" where I would get some crash dump information and then the PC would restart, although it wouldn't load windows up.

[nosisab]

Ops, sorry The_Terminator, I did not see your former post. Do help our friend with Dells specific, something I badly lack experience.

 

The CMOS is just a volatile RAM that maintain some informations related to specific configurations, as the date, time, and some useful informations about the used CPU among other things... yet nothing that can impacts the BIOS except where already told about excessive overclock that can prevent the POST... clearing it forces the BIOS to redo the basic configurations from safe 'hardcoded' informations. The only real disvantages of clearing the CMOS is losing those informations like date, hour and personal configurations. That CMOS is the reason for that battery on the mobo.

 

As analogy think the CMOS as the same as the INI files you may delete and the game recreate a fresh copy from a template. the worse is you losing the tweaks done.

 

About the overclocking I'm sure it was not attempted based in the issue evolution... I just pointed it as one reason the bios may fail to boot... and maybe the cmos got corrupted and so on, highly speculative I know, yet worth a try. RAM timings too are kept in the CMOS and can prevent the POST.

[TheTerminator2004]

Hm, if all the lights on the front go through their usual pattern, and then turn off, that means it didnt encounter any errors... which indicates it actually is going through POSt, as you said. This makes it sound like a graphics card problem, I think. Do you have any spare cards which you could plug in instead of your current one, and see if it works then? One thing which can be replaced easily in a DELL PC is the graphics card, so its worth a try.

[bben46]

FYI CMOS stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. It is the technology used in the manufacture of the BIOS chip.

 

Before getting into heavy troubleshooting, check the easy stuff.

 

Monitor - either try another monitor or try your monitor on another computer.

 

Cable- LOOK closely at the pins in the connectors on both ends of the cable. look for bent or broken pins. while you are looking check the connectors on the computer and monitor also.

 

Another way to reset the CMOS is to remove the battery from the motherboard and wait several minutes. Be sure to look at the way the battery is installed before removing it.

 

Reseat all removable cards on your motherboard. (unplug them, clean the connections and replug them securely)

 

Reseat all cables - unplug and replug them being careful not to bend any pins.

 

Disconnect everything not needed to work, such as DVD drive, hard drive, all except one stick of ram, any extra boards. You will need the video card, monitor and a keyboard. Start the computer and see if you get anything. If this works, replace the components one at a time until you get the failure.

 

Monitors do not cause the BSOD. If it is hardware related That is usually caused either by the power supply or motherboard. But can also be caused by just about ant component such as a sound card, hard drive or DVD drive, RAM affecting the power.

[theLeeHarvey]

ok, thanks guys, thats the best information I have gotten from anyone so far, even DELL themselves (imagine that huh?). When I get home tonight I will try your recommendations. First I will try the CMOS fix, I found the pins last night but I didn't mess with it because I didn't have the understanding then that you have given me now. If that doesn't work, I'll reseat all the cards as you suggest. Is there anything I shouldn't do or is there is anything I should be particularly careful to avoid? Should I have the PC's power turned off to reset the CMOS?

[TheTerminator2004]

ok, thanks guys, thats the best information I have gotten from anyone so far, even DELL themselves (imagine that huh?). When I get home tonight I will try your recommendations. First I will try the CMOS fix, I found the pins last night but I didn't mess with it because I didn't have the understanding then that you have given me now. If that doesn't work, I'll reseat all the cards as you suggest. Is there anything I shouldn't do or is there is anything I should be particularly careful to avoid? Should I have the PC's power turned off to reset the CMOS?

 

Yes, make sure the PC is powered down completely (ie. not plugged into the mains).

[LHammonds]

I must agree, there is a ton of expert advice being given and everything I was going to suggest has already been mentioned.