Member Avatar for joshslusser

Hi, a few days ago my wife's computer stopped at the black boot screen where it shows processor ram hd and so forth and stopped. I went in, turned it off, waited 10 seconds, then turned it back on and it was fine. Now last night she turned it on and it is again stuck there. So I turned it off waited turned it back on doesn't work. So I took it apart, cleaned it out, checked all connections nothing. Researching on here, I changed cmos jumper pin to clear cmos, now it comes up to HP INVENT screen where you can press f1 for bios ESC for boot order or f10 for recovery. None of which work. So (I am a techy) I ubnplugged everything. Leaving ONLY the video card, power, cpu, one stick of ram. Same thing won't go past boot screen. Thinking maybe this bios isn't recognizing the usb keyboard I dug out the original PS/2 keyboard plugged it in. The keyboard lights flash when its turned on but pressing keys doesn't do anything. Then I press numlock caps lock the lights don't come on.

I seen many other people with this problem but no solution. If it was a mother board bad I don't think it would come to the startup screen. I had 2 1gb ram chips in. I tried one at a time of each. improbable to have both ram go bad (no lightnign here just snow). So it's not ram, no HDD or DVD is plugged in(power or IDE/Sata) the ONLY thing is video card, board, cpu, keyboard... I unplugged the video card and used onboard video card. Does same thing with the exception the screen is wavy. Similar to a screen at the wrong refresh rate.

Any ideas would be helpful.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by DieselNash

Dani AI

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Brief, practical addendum based on this thread for anyone landing here later. The symptom set — machine reaching the HP splash but not accepting F1/F10/Esc, keyboard lights flashing without key response, faint repeated beeps (as noted by ), and the prior minimal-hardware/CMOS attempts from — most commonly narrows to three failure areas: the power supply rails being marginal, a board-level short or front-panel fault, or a motherboard/BIOS I/O controller failure. ’s PSU suggestion is the cheapest and highest-yield test; start there.

Steps that reliably isolate the fault (in rough order):

  1. Swap in a known-good ATX PSU or use a simple PSU tester. A PSU can spin fans and light LEDs yet fail to hold voltage under POST.
  2. Disconnect all case/front-panel headers (PWR_SW, RESET, front USB, HDD LED). Start the board by shorting the two power pins briefly — this rules out a stuck/reset switch or short.
  3. Use a different keyboard (prefer rear-panel PS/2 if available, and a known-good USB keyboard in a back USB). PS/2 lighting with no key response can point at a dead keyboard controller or a BIOS hang before enabling input.
  4. Fully clear CMOS: remove battery, set jumper, then press and hold power button with PSU disconnected to drain caps; wait 10–15 minutes, reseat battery.
  5. Visually inspect for bulging/leaking capacitors or scorch marks on both PSU and motherboard. Replace unit(s) showing damage.
  6. Fit a speaker on the motherboard header and note the exact beep pattern — use the HP/motherboard manual to interpret it before assuming component swaps.

Safe-practice notes: observe ESD precautions, never power the board with covers off near conductive dust, and avoid forcing CPU/socket pins. If PSU swap and front-panel isolation fail, the next logical step is motherboard replacement or sending the board for repair.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

power supply ,seen lots of psu that have problem booting a computer all the way ,bad caps in psu/or a short , try another psu !

Edited by caperjack because: n/a
Member Avatar for joshslusser

I'll give that a try. Has to be power supply or motherboard. I thought if power supply was bad it wouldn't even boot. But I am thinking you may be right and that is cheapest to replace.

Member Avatar for caperjack

psu can give enough power to boot ,but not all the way to windows seen it dozens of times

Member Avatar for DieselNash

Any results on this?? I just woke up to the same problem today. boots to the HP screen and stops. It's beeping faintly 10 times until it gets there.

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