Techy Computer Problem

[floydraser]

Such is my respect for the brains on this forum I thought this was worth a shot before I call in the professionals. And it'll be Friday when I call them so I'll get no joy 'till Monday anyway:

It's an HP Z420 tower, 10 years old but with upgrades, the latest being an SSD as lockdown took hold so I could work from home. It fires up, fans work but it gets to the black screen after the HP logo, with "press esc key to open startup menu" and freezes. Or, if I tap the esc key as it powers up it gets to the HP logo screen with "Entering startup menu......" but freezes there. Holding F10 does similar.

I have tried: pressing the reset cmos button, changed the cmos battery, swapped/removed ram cards. I can't find the same problem on forums; they either get past that stage or don't power up at all. Any suggestions as to what to try next would be welcome.

[Smoggy]

If the bios is corrupted it's pretty much cream crackered unfortunately.

[Bikertov]

I would have thought if the BIOS is corrupted, it wouldn't display the boot messages.

Silly point - have you tried a different keyboard, and also try a different USB port to plug it in to.

If you are sure the memory is OK (try just one module if there are 2, and then try the other) ...

.. then maybe the SSD is corrupted ?

Do you have the old hard disk that you swapped for the SSD ? If so, try that and see if it boots with it.

[oldgregg]

I'd be looking for a replacement motherboard at this point I think, provided you've tried it with all expansion cards unplugged and tried unplugging drives etc.

[grendel]

I have a zx4200 tower that I decommissioned a few years back, i got it when work upgraded our towers, and wanted to skip the old ones (we had 3) so one came home with me complete, and the other two were skipped (minus all the internal components, this kept the machine running for the next 10 years (it was 15 years old by then) the replacement was a z400 tower, and that is still going strong (though it is only switched on at need now, that one is connected to the TV, to play stored videos), sounds like it got a dodgy mother board on yours, if you have some heat sink paste, you might try unplugging the main chip and replugging it (last resort stuff that though)

[floydraser]

I knew you lot wouldn't let me down with ideas, thank you all. 

I do have another keyboard but it's wireless so probably won't do, but I'll give it a go as it's cheap.  The standard one plugs into the round keyboard socket.

The original hard drive is still in there but the SSD is the main one. It could be reversed I suppose. As Grendel hints, I am getting towards desperate measures to save it's *ss.

Motherboards seem to be hard to come by new. 

I bought it because the company I was sub-contracting to used nothing else for all their CAD. Can't complain; it's used everyday and has paid for itself a few times over. I won't be getting another one though as I doubt I'll be working enough to see a return.

I'll try the keyboard thing and if that doesn't work I'll take it to Gloucester along with the other suggestions here, and place it in the hands of my 11 year old Grandson (the one who, as a four year old, saw water coming out of the back of a boat and said "that's what keeps the river filled up") who recently built his own pc. OK, with the help of his Dad. 

Thanks again all.

[Bikertov]

What area are you in - anywhere near me, in NW London ?

Happy to help if you are.

[floydraser]

Thank you that's very kind. I'm in Leicestershire. Just arranged to visit Gloucester over the weekend and I'll report the outcome later.

[oldgregg]

20 hours ago, floydraser said:

Motherboards seem to be hard to come by new. 

eBay is your friend for motherboards - There'll be part numbers on it and you can usually find a replacement.

HP tend to use custom power supply wiring and connectors and other such wierdness to ensure that a standard motherboard can't be easily swapped in.

[Bikertov]

I picked up a Dell motherboard off ebay a couple of years ago, when mine blew up .

But to be honest, unless you get it dirt cheap,  it may not be worth investing more in the old machine - you can pick up a complete, more up to date, second hand PC for about £200,  and reuse the existing screen etc

[grendel]

I tend to buy all my tech at the local IT recycling centre, they have a big magnet machine that wipes the hard drives, and they load it up with the latest windows offering, a new tower unit was only a few hundred, and only about 5 years old

[JawsOrca]

I would (I realise I'm late to the party!):

- Certainly try the keyboard

- Give it a good hoover inside, including power supply, make sure that fan is turning well.

- Inspect motherboard for any swollen components.

- As Bikertov suggested, try booting unplugging a RAM stick one at time.

- Unplug SSD to make sure bios recognises (I doubt its a bios issue too).  If you are feeling brave you can try and upgrade bios firmware but it shouldn't really need it.

- I'd try a USB boot repair tool (I used to have a good one years ago but I can't remember and this day in age I have no clue whats a good one and whats not (Maybe try - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html) run the hardware diagnostic tool. It may sound complicated and high level but it's really not.. This is what the "Professionals" do or used to before just trying to flog new machines.

- Also try: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/repair-windows-10-using-usb-drive/35c9a8f8-dde5-4370-a8fe-5a84b9e00ebb 

 

 

 

[floydraser]

Thanks again. I did the hoover thing, did the ram thing, tried the keyboard thing, daren't touch the ssd connections even though it was me that put it in (under the phone direction of son No.1 in Gloucester.

I've just dropped it off to Gloucester where I put it in the house and returned to the car to get the keyboard. When I got back my grandson had the side panel off and was fetching his pc repair tools! We had to stop him though unfortunately but I expect a verdict soon. 

[floydraser]

Now children, I hope you're paying attention. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin:

By way of thanks and to help anyone finding this thread in the future, here is something of a conclusion to the problem. Having tried everything suggested here and elsewhere I gave up and bought an HP Victus laptop to replace the tower. This is because I don't expect to be working for the lifetime of a new tower. The laptop is designed as a gaming machine but they come with a better than average graphics card which is suitable for the kind of CAD I do at home. 

So then to retrieve the files: Naughty me, I didn't have a back up of my business files but rescue came in the form of the engineer I have been working with who lent me a connection cable and power supply in the photo. 

On the left is the 480Gb SSD with the SATA to USB cable plugged in. This just connects to the laptop and the files are easily accessible. On the right is the main 1Tb hard drive with SATA to USB cable unplugged to show the connection, with power cord showing too. The hard drive needing power to operate. This is all aimed at compu dummies like me, who took 65 years to learn this stuff and then only by accident/necessity!

I had forgotten that I had nearly 1.5Tb of storage and like having a massive garage, you fill it with rubbish! I found loads of old videos from the Youtube channel and one of the largest files is "Harvey Eastwood 37".  Anyway, just about sorted now but as someone said on another computer related thread, you would have thought you could just run a cable from one computer to another and transfer the files accross. Well it seems to me that security issues aside, manufacturers could make it happen?

So going forward I'll keep the SSD connected via docking station to save space on the laptop. 

One last question: In the pic - to the right of the SATA socket on the hard drive is another inverted T shaped socket with two pins. Whassat for? My guess is power.

Thanka again for your help and support.

[grendel]

This is most of my data storage, 13 Tb on the Synology hubs ( that's 26 Tb of hard drive running a raid array so everything is automatically backed up) alongside is another 6 tb of old hard drives, plus some other hard drives sitting on top and alongside, most of the spare hard drives came out of machines and were replaced with SSD drives, but in general everything gets stored in the network drives. I do have various adaptors to connect different hard drives and copy data onto my network drives. All of my tower machines are currently switched off, to save electricity, at around 250 watts each, whereas the network drives come in at under 50watts each.

[floydraser]

4 minutes ago, grendel said:

This is most of my data storage, 13 Tb on the Synology hubs ( that's 26 Tb of hard drive running a raid array so everything is automatically backed up) alongside is another 6 tb of old hard drives, plus some other hard drives sitting on top and alongside, most of the spare hard drives came out of machines and were replaced with SSD drives, but in general everything gets stored in the network drives. I do have various adaptors to connect different hard drives and copy data onto my network drives. All of my tower machines are currently switched off, to save electricity, at around 250 watts each, whereas the network drives come in at under 50watts each.

Good grief! That is a lot of "rubbish"! By my terms that is, I assume yours may be work related.

[grendel]

no, thats just my stuff, cad files, video and photos take up a lot of it, work manage on a far more modest 4Tb (that is almost always nearly full)

[floydraser]

2 hours ago, grendel said:

no, thats just my stuff, cad files, video and photos take up a lot of it, work manage on a far more modest 4Tb (that is almost always nearly full)

Crikey, I thought I was bad for collecting stuff. 

[Bikertov]

11 hours ago, grendel said:

This is most of my data storage, 13 Tb on the Synology hubs ( that's 26 Tb of hard drive running a raid array so everything is automatically backed up) alongside is another 6 tb of old hard drives, plus some other hard drives sitting on top and alongside, most of the spare hard drives came out of machines and were replaced with SSD drives, but in general everything gets stored in the network drives. I do have various adaptors to connect different hard drives and copy data onto my network drives. All of my tower machines are currently switched off, to save electricity, at around 250 watts each, whereas the network drives come in at under 50watts each.

 

Grendel - I hope you don't mind me saying, but it is a common mistake to think that RAID is the same as backing up. It most definitely isn't.

RAID only gives a certain level of fault tolerance againt a failed drive, but it definitely isn't the same as backing up. You are still very much at risk of disk failure, if one disk dies without you realising you have no fault tolerance left.

You also don't have any protection against data loss, deletion or cyber risks. 

Backing up to a different drive altogether, either cloud or physical (preferably kept offline and/or offsite) is the only way to ensure your data security. 

[grendel]

thanks for that, yes, i do know raid is not a backup as such, the system does alert me to a failed drive, i had one fail early on when a power outage caused one drive to crash its heads onto the disc, this is why all of this now runs on a ups, so i know that the raid system will do its job, as i inserted a new drive and it copied all the data back to that one, it is however i step higher than most home systems.

[Bikertov]

I would still recommend you back up any crucial files to a different disk or to the cloud.

[grendel]

critical data is duplicated on all 3 synology nas units, so is triple saved and on raid so effectively exists on 6 hard drives, if i get that bad a failure i have probably lost all of my data anyway.